"
"I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!"
shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly.
"Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are
piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense.
It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do
not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all."
"I don't, either," said Dorothy.
"Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter,"
replied King Kleaver.
"Why not?" asked Dorothy.
"You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he
said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?"
"I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron,
earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know."
"But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew.
"What do you know about it?" inquired the King.
"I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to
appear at the bar."
"But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You
may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to
withdraw your remarks.
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