"Par-don me. He is not the king now," said Tiktok.

"He was when I left there," declared Dorothy.

"I know," said Tiktok, "but there was a rev-o-lu-tion in the Land of
Oz, and the Scare-crow was de-posed by a sol-dier wo-man named
Gen-er-al Jin-jur. And then Jin-jur was de-posed by a lit-tle girl
named Oz-ma, who was the right-ful heir to the throne and now rules
the land un-der the ti-tle of Oz-ma of Oz."

"That is news to me," said Dorothy, thoughtfully. "But I s'pose
lots of things have happened since I left the Land of Oz. I wonder
what has become of the Scarecrow, and of the Tin Woodman, and the
Cowardly Lion. And I wonder who this girl Ozma is, for I never heard
of her before."

But Tiktok did not reply to this. He had turned around again to
resume his thinking.

Dorothy packed the rest of the food back into the pail, so as not to
be wasteful of good things, and the yellow hen forgot her dignity far
enough to pick up all of the scattered crumbs, which she ate rather
greedily, although she had so lately pretended to despise the things
that Dorothy preferred as food.

By this time Tiktok approached them with his stiff bow.

"Be kind e-nough to fol-low me," he said, "and I will lead you a-way
from here to the town of Ev-na, where you will be more com-for-ta-ble,
and al-so I will pro-tect you from the Wheel-ers."