"Good morning, sir," they answered, politely.

"Thank you for res-cu-ing me," continued the machine, in the same
monotonous voice, which seemed to be worked by a bellows inside of
him, like the little toy lambs and cats the children squeeze so that
they will make a noise.

"Don't mention it," answered Dorothy. And then, being very curious,
she asked: "How did you come to be locked up in this place?"

"It is a long sto-ry," replied the copper man; "but I will tell it to
you brief-ly. I was pur-chased from Smith & Tin-ker, my
man-u-fac-tur-ers, by a cru-el King of Ev, named Ev-ol-do, who used to
beat all his serv-ants un-til they died. How-ev-er, he was not a-ble
to kill me, be-cause I was not a-live, and one must first live in
or-der to die. So that all his beat-ing did me no harm, and mere-ly
kept my cop-per bod-y well pol-ished.

"This cru-el king had a love-ly wife and ten beau-ti-ful
chil-dren--five boys and five girls--but in a fit of an-ger he sold
them all to the Nome King, who by means of his mag-ic arts changed
them all in-to oth-er forms and put them in his un-der-ground pal-ace
to or-na-ment the rooms.

"Af-ter-ward the King of Ev re-gret-ted his wick-ed ac-tion, and tried
to get his wife and chil-dren a-way from the Nome King, but with-out
a-vail. So, in de-spair, he locked me up in this rock, threw the key
in-to the o-cean, and then jumped in af-ter it and was drowned."

"How very dreadful!" exclaimed Dorothy.