"CUTE!" raged the Elegant Elephant with such a fierce blast Planetty promptly turned Thun to the left.
"Now see what you've done," snickered Randy, giving Kabumpo's ear a mischievous tweak. "They think you want them to go left."
"As a matter of fact, I do," snapped Kabumpo grumpily. "We must go east through Ix and then north to Ev."
"Puzzling and more puzzling," murmured Planetty, looking round at the Elegant Elephant. "Where are all these curious places, Bumpo dear? I thought all the time we were in Noz. Did you not tell us you were the Big Bumpo of Noz?"
Randy peered rather anxiously over Kabumpo's ear to see how he was taking this second nickname, but he need not have worried. The "dear Bumpo," spoken in the metal maid's ringing tones, fell like a charm on Kabumpo's ruffled feelings. And, fairly oozing complacency and importance, he began to explain his own and Randy's real names and countries, hoping Planetty would straighten them out in her own head, if not in Thun's.
"You are right," he started off sonorously. "Randy and I both live in the Land of Oz, a great oblong country entirely surrounded by a desert of burning sand. But in Oz there are many, many Kingdoms: first of all, the four large realms, the Gilliken Country of the North, the Quadling Country of the South, the Empire of the Winkies in the East, and the Land of the Munchkins in the West. Each of these Kingdoms has its own sovereign; but all are under the supreme rule of Ozma, a fairy Princess as lovely as your own small self, and Ozma lives in an Emerald City in the exact center of Oz."
Kabumpo paused impressively while Planetty's eyes twinkled merrily at his delicate flattery. "Now Randy and I hail from the north Gilliken Country of Oz," proceeded the Elegant Elephant, moving along as he spoke in a grand and leisurely manner. "I come from the Kingdom of Pumperdink, and Randy from the Regal little realm of Regalia. Only yesterday I arrived in Regalia to visit Randy, and we are now on our way to the castle of the Red Jinn, as I think I told you before. If we were in Oz, my dear—" Kabumpo rather lingered over the "dear"—"Ozma and her clever assistant, the Wizard of Oz, would quickly transport you to Anuther Planet with the magic belt. But, you see, we are not in Oz, for the same storm that overtook you and Thun overtook us, and hurled us across the Deadly Desert to this Kingdom of Ix, where we all now find ourselves. Fortunately, too, for otherwise we might never have met a Princess from Anuther Planet."
The little Princess nodded in bright agreement.
"So—" continued Kabumpo, picking a huge tiger-lily and holding it out to her, "as it is too difficult to travel back to the Emerald City of Oz, we will take you with us to the Wizard of Ev, whose castle is on the Nonestic Ocean in the country adjoining Ix."