have managed to invent such an
unreasonable being as I? But I'm glad--I'm awfully glad!--that I'm just
what I am, and nothing else."

"Be quiet, will you?" cried the frantic Magician; "be quiet and let me
think! If I don't think I shall go mad."

"Think ahead," said the Patchwork Girl, seating herself in a chair.
"Think all you want to. I don't mind."

"Gee! but I'm tired playing that tune," called the phonograph, speaking
through its horn in a brazen, scratchy voice. "If you don't mind, Pipt,
old boy, I'll cut it out and take a rest."

The Magician looked gloomily at the music-machine.

"What dreadful luck!" he wailed, despondently. "The Powder of Life must
have fallen on the phonograph."

He went up to it and found that the gold bottle that contained the
precious powder had dropped upon the stand and scattered its life-giving
grains over the machine. The phonograph was very much alive, and began
dancing a jig with the legs of the table to which it was attached, and
this dance so annoyed Dr. Pipt that he kicked the thing into a corner
and pushed a bench against it, to hold it quiet.

"You were bad enough before," said the Magician, resentfully; "but a
live phonograph is enough to drive every sane person in the Land of Oz
stark crazy."

[Illustration]

"No insults, please," answered the phonograph in a surly tone. "You did
it, my boy; don't blame me."

"You've bungled everything, Dr. Pipt," added the Glass Cat,
contemptuously.

"Except me," said the Patchwork Girl, jumping up to whirl merrily around
the room.

"I think," said Ojo, almost ready to cry through grief over Unc Nunkie's
sad fate, "it must all be my fault, in some way. I'm called Ojo the
Unlucky, you know."

"That's nonsense, kiddie," retorted the Patchwork Girl cheerfully. "No
one can be unlucky who has the intelligence to direct his own actions.
The unlucky ones are those who beg for a chance to think, like poor Dr.
Pipt here. What's the row about, anyway, Mr. Magic-maker?"

"The Liquid of Petrifaction has accidentally fallen upon my dear wife
and Unc Nunkie and turned them into marble," he sadly replied.

"Well, why don't you sprinkle some of that powder on them and bring them
to life again?" asked the Patchwork Girl.

The Magician gave a jump.

"Why, I hadn't thought of that!" he joyfully cried, and grabbed up the
golden bottle, with which he ran to Margolotte.

Said the Patchwork Girl:

"Higgledy, piggledy, dee--
What