egan winding it up. And still the music played.

"Let's run!" cried Scraps, and they all started and ran down the path as
fast as they could go. But the phonograph was right behind them and
could run and play at the same time. It called out, reproachfully:

"What's the matter? Don't you love classical music?"

"No, Vic," said Scraps, halting. "We will passical the classical and
preserve what joy we have left. I haven't any nerves, thank goodness,
but your music makes my cotton shrink."

"Then turn over my record. There's a rag-time tune on the other side,"
said the machine.

"What's rag-time?"

"The opposite of classical."

"All right," said Scraps, and turned over the record.

The phonograph now began to play a jerky jumble of sounds which proved
so bewildering that after a moment Scraps stuffed her patchwork apron
into the gold horn and cried: "Stop--stop! That's the other extreme.
It's extremely bad!"

Muffled as it was, the phonograph played on.

"If you don't shut off that music I'll smash your record," threatened
Ojo.

The music stopped, at that, and the machine turned its horn from one to
another and said with great indignation: "What's the matter now? Is it
possible you can't appreciate rag-time?"

"Scraps ought to, being rags herself," said the cat; "but I simply can't
stand it; it makes my whiskers curl."

"It is, indeed, dreadful!" exclaimed Ojo, with a shudder.

"It's enough to drive a crazy lady mad," murmured the Patchwork Girl.
"I'll tell you what, Vic," she added as she smoothed out her apron and
put it on again, "for some reason or other you've missed your guess.
You're not a concert; you're a nuisance."

"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast," asserted the phonograph
sadly.

"Then we're not savages. I advise you to go home and beg the Magician's
pardon."

"Never! He'd smash me."

"That's what we shall do, if you stay here," Ojo declared.

"Run along, Vic, and bother some one else," advised Scraps. "Find some
one who is real wicked, and stay with him till he repents. In that way
you can do some good in the world."

The music thing turned silently away and trotted down a side path,
toward a distant Munchkin village.

"Is that the way _we_ go?" asked Bungle anxiously.

"No," said Ojo; "I think we shall keep straight ahead, for this path is
the widest and best. When we come to some house we will inquire the way
to the Emerald City."

THE FOOLISH OWL AND THE WIS