"
"I'm not a fox!" cried Button-Bright.
"Alas, no," agreed the maid. "But you've got a lovely fox head on
your skinny shoulders, and that's ALMOST as good as being a fox."
The boy, reminded of his misfortune, began to cry again. Dorothy
petted and comforted him and promised to find some way to restore
him his own head.
"If we can manage to get to Ozma," she said, "the Princess will change
you back to yourself in half a second; so you just wear that fox head
as comf't'bly as you can, dear, and don't worry about it at all. It
isn't nearly as pretty as your own head, no matter what the foxes say;
but you can get along with it for a little while longer, can't you?"
"Don't know," said Button-Bright, doubtfully; but he didn't cry any
more after that.
Dorothy let the maids pin ribbons to her shoulders, after which they
were ready for the King's dinner. When they met the shaggy man in the
splendid drawing room of the palace they found him just the same as
before. He had refused to give up his shaggy clothes for new ones,
because if he did that he would no longer be the shaggy man, he said,
and he might have to get acquainted with himself all over again.
He told Dorothy he had brushed his shaggy hair and whiskers; but she
thought he must have brushed them the wrong way, for they were quite
as shaggy as before.
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