The applause was tremendous. Apparently everyone in the Grand Dining Room favored King Ticket's startling plan.

But Tom leaped to his feet and exclaimed:

"Your Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen—Thank you for this great honor, but I cannot be your King. Maybe I'll never get the chance to be a king again. But the important thing for Twink and me is to find our way home. The Shaggy Man has promised that Ozma of Oz will send us home if we can only reach Oz. That is the thing we want most. Anyway, I have no right to be your King—I don't know anything about the job, and you should really be grateful to the Love Magnet for making you happy—not me. Now that you folks know the meaning of real love, I'm sure King Ticket will make you a fine King and Queen Curtain will be a real Queen."

Again the applause resounded. At last King Ticket rose again, expressing his regret that Tom could not remain with them to be their King. King Ticket promised that he would do his best to be a kind and loving monarch. His first move, he said, would be to grant complete freedom to the people who had wandered to the castle and had become slaves on the Stage of False Romance. These people, he said, might return to their own homes, or they might, if they wished, remain to dwell as Lords and Ladies in the Castle of Romance.

Since they would have no further use for the theater, King Ticket promised to have the seats removed and the theater remodeled into a real Temple of Learning, where each of his subjects might learn some craft or art that would be useful or pleasing to his fellows. Here they would meet each day and study and work at their arts and crafts, enjoying companionship and the satisfaction of real accomplishment and creation.

"If you do manage to get to the Land of Oz," King Ticket said to the Shaggy Man, "I wonder if you would ask Professor Wogglebug if he would like to come to our Temple of Learning as a visiting Professor? I am sure there are many things he could teach us that would be both interesting and useful."

Shaggy promised to extend the invitation to the learned Wogglebug, who was head of the Royal College of Oz.

In spite of all the excitement, Twink and Tom were nodding by the time the feasting and speech-making were ended.

Everyone bade them a happy goodnight and Lady Cue conducted them once more to their rooms. The Love Magnet had wrought its change on Lady Cue, too. Gone was her former befuddled state in which she was not at all sure of anything or anyone. Now she was a charming, gracious lady with the manners of a cordial and perfect hostess.

Shaggy and the children were fast asleep almost as soon as their heads touched the soft pillows. Twiffle passed the night looking at the pictures in the books on the living room shelves.

By the middle of the following morning they were ready to begin their adventures again. They found that King Ticket, Queen Curtain, the Lords and Ladies, and the former actors and actresses, many of whom had decided to make their homes in the Valley of Romance, were gathered in the courtyard to bid them farewell.

King Ticket gave them general directions for traveling to reach the Deadly Desert. That was the nearest he could come to directing them to the Land of Oz.

Just as they were about to leave, Lady Cue arrived breathlessly on the scene. She was so excited that she nearly lapsed into her old bewildered state.