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Cowardly Lion of Oz

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<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus14.jpg" width-obs="569" height-obs="500" alt=""/></div> <h2>Chapter 3</h2> At the Court of Mudge Neither the clown nor the boy spoke for several minutes. To tell the truth, they were breathless. Then the clown sat up and looked doubtfully at the orphan. "Well, here we are," he said, winking more from force of habit than because he felt particularly jolly. "Yes, sir!" gulped the orphan, swallowing hard. "Now don't call me sir," begged the clown, making conversation to gain time. "Don't call me sir because I worked in a circus. My name is Notta—Notta Bit More. I was the last of twelve children, and my mother and father could not agree on a name for me. Every time my mother said, 'Call him Augustus Elmer More,' my father said, 'not a bit of it.' After while, being a clown himself and a joker by trade, he began calling me 'Notta Bit More' and Notta I've been ever since." The clown winked again. "Call me Notta, won't you?" "Yes, sir," replied the orphan, swallowing again and trying not to cry. Seeing this, Notta turned a double somersault and stood on his head. "And what is your name?" he asked, waving his legs cheerfully. "Bobbie Downs," sniffed the orphan, with another swallow. "How did you get it?" The clown dropped down beside the little boy. "I think it came with me, sir," said Bobbie faintly. "Well, if you don't mind, we'll change it to Bob Up—for that's what we've done—and Bob Up sounds more lively than Bobbie Downs, don't you think?" While Notta was talking he was glancing anxiously around him. "Bob," he said finally, "I think we've fallen in with another circus. See, there are the tents, and I hear lions roaring." "So do I," said Bobbie beginning to look more interested than frightened. "Yes, it's either a circus or a sea shore without any sea," continued the clown, running his fingers through the sand. "But anyway, here I am and here you are, and so long as you are here we'll bob up together. Let's go on to the main tent and see the show." Bobbie stood up and shook the water from his cap. They were both dripping wet from the storm they had passed through, but the sun and wind of this queer desert country soon dried them off and, conversing almost cheerfully, they trudged through the deep sand toward a large blue, striped tent. "I've done a heap of traveling in my time," confided Notta, "but never in just this way. I've run into some strange places and walked into others; but this is the first time I ever talked myself into a country. There we were in a circus, quiet and natural like, then that rhyme pops into my head. I say it and off we go like a couple of skyrockets. We were just talked into this country, Bob, my boy, and a mighty tricky business I call it. But never mind, we'll just follow the rules anyway." "What rules?" asked Bob, looking curiously at some tall palm trees, waving in the distance. He had never supposed palm trees existed outside of geography books. "Why," explained Notta, "just four simple little rules I made up to use in case of danger or trouble. First," he pulled out his little finger, "first I disguise myself. If that fails, I'm extree-mly polite. If politeness doesn't do, I tell a joke. If the joke fails, I shout something no one can understand and run like sixty. So don't you worry, Bob; stick to me and run when I run and everything will turn out right. Do you know what makes me so fat?" Bob shook his head. "Disguises!" whispered Notta triumphantly. "I use them for padding. Mighty handy when I tumble about. Yes, sir, in here." Notta fondly patted his bulging suit. "In here I have six marvelous disguises ready to put on at a moment's notice, and in here," Notta tapped his powdery forehead, "in here, I've sixty different jokes, and lots of things I don't understand myself, so you see we are prepared for everything." "Yes, sir," said Bobbie solemnly, for he was a very solemn little boy. Living in an orphan asylum had made him that way and, as for adventures, he had never had an adventure in his life. There were lessons and meals and punishments, and once in a while a fight among the older boys, but no one in that big, busy home had time to talk to Bobbie Downs, nor answer his questions. So Bobbie had grown quieter and more solemn each year of the seven he had spent in the dull gray asylum. Notta looked at the little boy curiously as he trudged along beside him. The kindly clown decided that he was going to like Bob Up, and right there he decided that Bob Up was going to have a little fun. "I'll bet he's never laughed out loud in his whole life," thought the clown to himself, and began running over in his head the funniest jokes that he knew. He had just determined on the one about the pig and the pound of bacon, when an ear splitting screech knocked all thought of joking out of his mind. A huge figure, with bristling blue whiskers, had stepped out from behind a palm tree, taken one look at the two strangers and then disappeared in the direction of the blue tent, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Is it Blue Beard?" quavered Bob, clutching Notta. "Bob," said the clown, swallowing hard, "I don't know, but we'll just try rule one." Fumbling in the bosom of his suit he dragged out a brown bundle, and before the little boy could wink had stepped into it and dropped on all fours. "I'm a lion," panted Notta, "and if I roar loudly enough I may frighten them off. Stick close to me, Bob, and try to remember the rules. If I run, you run—understand?" "Yes, sir!" gasped Bob, his eyes as round as cookies, for Notta's disguise was so real that he was almost afraid himself. Scarcely had Notta cleared his throat for a growl than a white robed company burst out of the blue tent, and descended upon them in a whirl of sand and scimitars. Bob was as brave as any boy, but his retired life in an orphan asylum had not prepared him for anything like this. Tears started to his eyes. With a scream of fright, he grasped Notta's woolly mane. "You'd better stop crying and get ready to run," whispered the clown nervously and finished his sentence with such a roar that Bob jumped quite three feet. But the wild white company kept right on coming and, before Notta could get another growl going, a net was thrown over his head, a dozen of the blue whiskered villains were upon him and next instant he was rolling over and over in the sandy road. Bob had shut his eyes tight, expecting to be snatched himself, but when nothing happened he opened them and saw with a little gasp that they were hustling Notta, with pricks and prods, towards the billowing blue tent. This was Bob's first adventure and he might have run away, but something inside of him, that he hadn't known about, kept him there. Right in that moment, and all of a sudden, Bob discovered that he was fonder of this clown whom he had known only a few moments than of anyone he had ever known before. He felt that if something terrible was going to happen to Notta it might as well happen to him too. "Bob Up," the clown had called him. Well, bob up he would. With trembling legs, he ran after the shouting company, and managed to squeeze into the royal tent unnoticed, behind the broad back of Tazzywaller. For as you have all guessed long before now, it was to Mudge that Notta had transported himself and the little boy. Notta's disguise, though somewhat askew, still held together and he was growling terribly to keep up his courage, at the same time looking anxiously around for Bob. His lion head had been knocked sideways, so that he could only see out of one eye, but what he managed to see with one eye was enough to make him quake with terror. The Mudgers were shouting and hopping about in front of a large blue throne, pointing at him with their flashing scimitars. Then a tall, particularly thin fellow seized him by the ear. It was Panapee. <hr class="chap" /> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus15.jpg" width-obs="650" height-obs="455" alt=""/></div> <hr class="chap" /> "Lion," cried Panapee haughtily, "this is your new master, Mustafa of Mudge. Your Highness, here is the lion you were just wishing for!" "An odd looking beast," puffed the ruler of Mudge, tugging at his mustache. "An awful looking creature I call it," sniffed Tazzywaller, who was jealous to think another lion really had been captured after he said there were no more. "Maybe it's the Cowardly Lion," mused Mustafa. "I see that his knees are trembling. Are you the Cowardly Lion?" he demanded, pointing his scimitar at poor Notta. The clown roared dismally, to prove he was no coward. How was he to know that in the land of Oz all animals can and are expected to talk? Why, he did not even know he was in Oz, and in the hands of the Mudgers. "He refuses to answer," said Mustafa gloomily. "Well, a dumb lion is better than no lion at all. Take him away, Panny, and lock him up with the other lions. I hope he's a good fighter. Let me see, that makes ten thousand for you to feed, Tazzywaller, if the others don't chew this one up." He rubbed his hands joyfully together. "I'll come out later on and see how they take to him. But I am not going to be satisfied until I have the Cowardly Lion, Panny. This lion is a cowardly lion but not the Cowardly Lion. Take him away!" Mustafa picked up the lion book and, waving Notta out of the tent, fell to looking at the picture of the Cowardly Lion of Oz. All during this conversation Notta's hair had been prickling under his mane. Ten thousand lions! Sizzling sawdust! Better face these wild-looking men than that. Rule one had failed, it was time to try rule two. <hr class="chap" /> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus16.jpg" width-obs="650" height-obs="382" alt=""/></div> <hr class="chap" /> "Come on," growled the Mudger at his head and gave the rope around his neck a sharp tug. But before the clown had a chance to move or speak, there was a shrill scream, and out rushed Bob Up, almost upsetting old Tazzywaller. He flung both arms around the trembling lion. "You shan't take him away," cried the little boy stormily. "It isn't a lion. It's Notta!" "Notta?" roared Mustafa, lurching forward and looking at Bobbie with astonishment. "Not a lion," cried the clown, rising on his hind legs and hastily removing his lion head. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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