"All right," said Zep, "I won't, but I never expect to visit Obstinate Town again if I can help it."
And sure enough Zep never did. From that moment he was a changed boy, so much so that it really worried his father, the king.
"I don't understand it," said the King to his Prime Minister. "He does just what I tell him and never whines; and when he takes a walk he jumps about a foot if a leaf falls on him. I don't understand it."
But if the King did not, Zep did, and was determined no Poppykok should get another chance at him.
[TOOBAD THE TAILOR]
Once there lived in the city of Vex a tailor named Toobad, which was a very good name for him, for he really was too bad for anything, in fact, he was downright wicked. And not only was he wicked but he was also deceitful, because he was really not a tailor at all but an enchanter or conjuror, and only practiced a tailor's trade to fool the fathers, and grandfathers, and uncles, and big brothers of the little boys of Vex, and make them pay him money. And this is the way he did it:
He put a sign in his window and offered to make clothes for gentlemen very, very cheap out of the very, very best materials that would never wear out, and of course when he offered to do that all the fathers, and grandfathers, and uncles, and big brothers went and ordered their suits from him as quick as they could. But after the clothes were made and the fathers, and grandfathers, and uncles, and big brothers had put them on, then they found out, when it was too late, what sort of a person Toobad was, for they had to keep on paying, and paying, and paying for the clothes forever and forever. If they did not the suits they were wearing got tighter and tighter until their breath was almost squeezed out of them.
It was no use to try to get the clothes off because they simply would not come off. So you can imagine how cross and miserable all the fathers, and grandfathers, and uncles, and big brothers in Vex were.
Now there were lots of little boys in Vex, but the most interesting one was a bright little fellow named Winn, because in his family there happened to be a father, and a grandfather, and an uncle, and a big brother all wearing suits made by Toobad the Tailor, whereas the other boys only had a father, or a grandfather, or an uncle, or a big brother. None of them had all four together, and therefore did not have as much cause to dislike Toobad as Winn had.