"Good! Very good indeed! You certainly have a brilliant mind. Do
you know why two and two make four?"

"No," said Button-Bright.

"Clever! clever indeed! Of course you don't know. Nobody knows why;
we only know it's so, and can't tell why it's so. Button-Bright,
those curls and blue eyes do not go well with so much wisdom. They
make you look too youthful, and hide your real cleverness. Therefore,
I will do you a great favor. I will confer upon you the head of a fox,
so that you may hereafter look as bright as you really are."

As he spoke the King waved his paw toward the boy, and at once the
pretty curls and fresh round face and big blue eyes were gone,
while in their place a fox's head appeared upon Button-Bright's
shoulders--a hairy head with a sharp nose, pointed ears, and keen
little eyes.

"Oh, don't do that!" cried Dorothy, shrinking back from her
transformed companion with a shocked and dismayed face.

"Too late, my dear; it's done. But you also shall have a fox's head
if you can prove you're as clever as Button-Bright."

"I don't want it; it's dreadful!" she exclaimed; and, hearing this
verdict, Button-Bright began to boo-hoo just as if he were still a
little boy.

"How can you call that lovely head dreadful?" asked the King. "It's
a much prettier face than he had before, to my notion, and my wife