run o-ver me, and butt me with their heads; but they soon found I was
built of too sol-id a ma-ter-i-al for them to in-jure."

"You seem very durable," said Dorothy. "Who made you?"

"The firm of Smith & Tin-ker, in the town of Evna, where the roy-al
pal-ace stands," answered Tiktok.

"Did they make many of you?" asked the child.

"No; I am the on-ly au-to-mat-ic me-chan-i-cal man they ev-er
com-plet-ed," he replied. "They were ver-y won-der-ful in-ven-tors,
were my mak-ers, and quite ar-tis-tic in all they did."

"I am sure of that," said Dorothy. "Do they live in the town of
Evna now?"

"They are both gone," replied the machine. "Mr. Smith was an art-ist,
as well as an in-vent-or, and he paint-ed a pic-ture of a riv-er
which was so nat-ur-al that, as he was reach-ing a-cross it to paint
some flow-ers on the op-po-site bank, he fell in-to the wa-ter
and was drowned."

"Oh, I'm sorry for that!" exclaimed the little girl.

"Mis-ter Tin-ker," continued Tiktok, "made a lad-der so tall that he
could rest the end of it a-gainst the moon, while he stood on the
high-est rung and picked the lit-tle stars to set in the points of the
king's crown. But when he got to the moon Mis-ter Tin-ker found it
such a love-ly place that he de-cid-ed to live there, so he pulled up