Picking up a long, crooked stick and evidently thinking he had talked enough, Tora began to whistle an old Oz tune. Walking along solemnly beside him Snip could not help wondering how the old tailor had ever come to be a prisoner in Blankenburg and whether he had always had butterfly ears.
"I'll ask him as soon as they come back," decided Snip, but meantime he was growing hungrier and hungrier, for since the drink of cream in Catty Corners he had had nothing at all to eat. He kept a sharp lookout for fruit and nut trees and presently, in a small grove to the right, he caught a glimpse of a perfectly enormous breakfast bush.
Motioning for Tora to wait for him, Snip darted off. The tailor looked slightly puzzled but, making no objection, sat down on a rock and went on with his whistling. Hastening back with two steaming breakfast dishes in his hands, Snip was surprised to hear a loud, plaintive voice mingling with Tora's tune. Quickening his steps the little boy saw a tall, kingly figure waving indignant arms at the tailor.
"Are you crazy?" he shouted angrily. "I ask you once again, may I borrow a breakfast or a bite of lunch? It's for a Princess. Can't you answer me?" But Tora, fixing his eye on a fluffy cloud skimming across the sky, went calmly on with his tune. "He is deaf to my pleas," puffed the stranger, whirling round unsteadily and almost bumping into Snip. "Deaf and dumb!"
"He isn't deaf," explained the little boy breathlessly. "He has just mislaid his ears. I mean he's let them off for awhile."
"Let them off? Dorothy! Dorothy! Come at once! Here is a man with mislaid ears!" shrilled the stranger, hobbling off. Snip stared after him, open mouthed, as he wobbled wildly down the road.