s bragging. You prob'ly don't know
how strong other people are. Why, once I knew a man in Philadelphi' who
could bend iron bars with just his hands!"

"But--mercy me!--it's no trick to bend iron bars," said His Majesty.
"Tell me, could this man crush a block of stone with his bare hands?"

"No one could do that," declared the boy.

"If I had a block of stone I'd show you," said the Czarover, looking
around the room. "Ah, here is my throne. The back is too high, anyhow,
so I'll just break off a piece of that."

He rose to his feet and tottered in an uncertain way around the throne.
Then he took hold of the back and broke off a piece of marble over a
foot thick.

"This," said he, coming back to his seat, "is very solid marble and much
harder than ordinary stone. Yet I can crumble it easily with my
fingers--a proof that I am very strong."

Even as he spoke he began breaking off chunks of marble and crumbling
them as one would a bit of earth. The Wizard was so astonished that he
took a piece in his own hands and tested it, finding it very hard
indeed.

Just then one of the giant servants entered and exclaimed:

[Illustration]

"Oh, Your Majesty, the cook has burned the soup! What shall we do?"

"How dare you interrupt me?" asked the Czarover, and grasping the
immense giant by one of his legs he raised him in the air and threw him
headfirst out of an open window.

"Now, tell me," he said, turning to Button-Bright, "could your man in
Philadelphia crumble marble in his fingers?"

"I guess not," said Button-Bright, much impressed by the skinny
monarch's strength.

"What makes you so strong?" inquired Dorothy.

"It's the zosozo," he explained, "which is an invention of my own. I and
all my people eat zosozo, and it gives us tremendous strength. Would you
like to eat some?"

"No, thank you," replied the girl. "I--I don't want to get so thin."

"Well, of course one can't have strength and flesh at the same time,"
said the Czarover. "Zosozo is pure energy, and it's the only compound of
its sort in existence. I never allow our giants to have it, you know, or
they would soon become our masters, since they are bigger than we; so I
keep all the stuff locked up in my private laboratory. Once a year I
feed a teaspoonful of it to each of my people--men, women and
children--so every one of them is nearly as strong as I am. Wouldn't
_you_ like a dose, sir?" he asked, turning to the Wizard.

"Well," said the Wizard, "if