Then I got in a spot of trouble. A local brouhaha, nothing you need worry yourself about. I made a bad investment prediction and a couple of Shiz financiers who were trembling on the edge of ruin fell into it. When their goons came after me with a vengeance, I developed a sudden yen to see the other sights of Oz. So I considered lighting out for the Emerald City, which, while still being built, was already the biggest conurbation in Oz. Finding me there would take some doing, and I hoped they wouldn’t manage it. Still, you have found me. A goon on whose payroll?

B RRR THOUGHT: Is she just making this up because of my own admission of being morally obtuse as a cub? Trying to soften me up by saying, see, we’re equally untethered to conventions of right and wrong?

A court reporter’s first job, though, is to report what is said. Let someone else authenticate it. Someone with more to lose. Hah-as if there were such a creature.

“Very interesting,” he said, and made some notes. Then he regarded them dubiously. He had invented a shorthand all his own to compensate for his inability to hold a pen in the human style-wrong muscle groups for that. But sometimes he couldn’t read his own scrawl. He hoped he wouldn’t come a cropper when it was time to dictate to his transcriber back in the Emerald City court stenographers’ bullpen. She’d slap his face, and her colleagues would snort and titter. The flatheads.

“You haven’t answered my question,” he said. “I had asked about when and how you first came in touch with the Thropp family. When you became aware of them. And I’m trying to find out why your name was scribbled in the notes left in the archives of a clandestine Wizardic operative named Madame Morrible.”

“One has to start somewhere,” she replied. “Because I developed a reputation for clairvoyance in the demimonde of Oz, I attracted the attention of a family retainer of the Thropp contingent. It all goes back to that.”

“Still, can we get to the point? I haven’t been tracking the progress of the military units around here, but if the skirmishes around us heat up, the Emerald City Messiars or the Munchkinlanders may need to fall back to regroup. I wouldn’t be surprised if this House is commandeered for a garrison by nightfall. I plan to be finished up and on my way before that happens. I have no interest in hobnobbing with soldiers. Not my type.”

“Don’t bully me,” she snapped.

He straightened up. This was one of the nicest things that had been said to him since his release from custody. “The Thropp family,” he insisted.

“You next,” she said. “This is a bargain, remember? What happened when you debuted in property society? Civilization and its malcontents?”

The Lion’s voice was testy. “You are under order of the Emerald City Court of Magistrates to comply with my request for information. I don’t have to answer your nosy questions. I’m done auditioning for you. I’ve said all I have to say.”