“I myself will rule while I am gone,” was the reply. “A King isn’t required to stay at home forever, and if he takes a notion to travel, whose business is it but his own? All I ask is that you bears behave yourselves while I am away. If any of you is naughty, I’ll send him to some girl or boy in America to play with.”

This dreadful threat made all the toy bears look solemn. They assured the King, in a chorus of growls, that they would be good. Then the big Lavender Bear picked up the little Pink Bear and after tucking it carefully under one arm he said “Goodbye till I come back!” and waddled along the path that led through the forest. The Frogman and Cayke the Cookie Cook also said goodbye to the bears and then followed after the King, much to the regret of the little Brown Bear, who pulled the trigger of his gun and popped the cork as a parting salute.

Chapter 17

The Meeting

While the Frogman and his party were advancing from the west, Dorothy and her party were advancing from the east, and so it happened that on the following night they all camped at a little hill that was only a few miles from the wicker castle of Ugu the Shoemaker. But the two parties did not see one another that night, for one camped on one side of the hill while the other camped on the opposite side. But the next morning the Frogman thought he would climb the hill and see what was on top of it, and at the same time Scraps, the Patchwork Girl, also decided to climb the hill to find if the wicker castle was visible from its top. So she stuck her head over an edge just as the Frogman’s head appeared over another edge and both, being surprised, kept still while they took a good look at one another.

Scraps recovered from her astonishment first and bounding upward she turned a somersault and landed sitting down and facing the big Frogman, who slowly advanced and sat opposite her.

“Well met, Stranger!” cried the Patchwork Girl, with a whoop of laughter. “You are quite the funniest individual I have seen in all my travels.”

“Do you suppose I can be any funnier than you?” asked the Frogman, gazing at her in wonder.

“I’m not funny to myself, you know,” returned Scraps. “I wish I were. And perhaps you are so used to your own absurd shape that you do not laugh whenever you see your reflection in a pool, or in a mirror.”

“No,” said the Frogman gravely, “I do not. I used to be proud of my great size and vain of my culture and education, but since I bathed in the Truth Pond I sometimes think it is not right that I should be different from all other frogs.”