"Why not, Guph?"
"You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people,
and they defeated you."
"That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a
shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself.
They are poison to all who live underground."
"That is true enough," agreed Guph.
"But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them
before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due
to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not
know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at
all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there."
"On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in
Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my
way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to
capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected
by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them."
"That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad,
indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face
hen's eggs--and I don't blame them.
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