I've named them Dorothy."
"Which one?" asked the girl.
"All of them," replied Billina.
"That's funny. Why did you name them all with the same name?"
"It was so hard to tell them apart," explained the hen. "Now, when
I call 'Dorothy,' they all come running to me in a bunch; it's much
easier, after all, than having a separate name for each."
"I'm just dying to see 'em, Billina," said Dorothy, eagerly. "But tell
me, my friends, how did you happen to be here, in the Country of the
Winkies, the first of all to meet us?"
"I'll tell you," answered Tik-tok, in his monotonous voice, all the
sounds of his words being on one level--"Prin-cess Oz-ma saw you in
her mag-ic pic-ture, and knew you were com-ing here; so she sent
Bil-lin-a and me to wel-come you as she could not come her-self; so
that--fiz-i-dig-le cum-so-lut-ing hy-ber-gob-ble in-tu-zib-ick--"
"Good gracious! Whatever's the matter now?" cried Dorothy, as the
copper man continued to babble these unmeaning words, which no one
could understand at all because they had no sense.
"Don't know," said Button-Bright, who was half scared. Polly whirled
away to a distance and turned to look at the copper man in a fright.
"His thoughts have run down, this time," remarked Billina composedly,
as she sat on Tik-tok's shoulder and pruned her sleek feathers. "When
he can't think, he can't talk properly, any more than you can.
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