"Who?" stuttered Notta, getting a good hold on Bob and making ready to run at the lion's first move.

"The Mudgers," wheezed the lion, two tears rolling down its nose. With many gulps and sighs it told them how Tazzywaller had cut it in two and imprisoned its back half in the lion enclosure.

"You mean to say that you were cut in half and still live to tell the tale?" gasped Notta in astonishment.

"I don't know what you mean by telling the tail. How can I tell the tail anything when all my connections with it are cut off? Oh, my poor tail, how it must miss me!" moaned the half lion.

"Then you only have two legs," said Bob in a relieved tone and coming out from behind Notta. The lion nodded gloomily. "If I had four, do you think I'd be standing propped up against these bushes. I'd have eaten you long ago."

"What a blessing," murmured the clown under his breath, "that it's only half a lion."

"I'd like a little sympathy," continued the lion in its mournful voice. "If the little fellow would pat me on the head I think, it would ease me a bit."

"Shall I?" asked Bob Up doubtfully.

"How do we know you won't bite him?" asked Notta cautiously.

"I haven't the courage," replied the lion dolefully. "Besides my stomach is gone and that rather takes the appetite away, you know. Oh, my poor little empty stomach, how dreadfully it must feel! Then, to bite a person I should have to work myself up into a rage, and that I cannot do without a tail to lash. And half my heart is missing so I—"

"Do everything half-heartedly," finished Notta, with a wink at Bob.

"Exactly," blubbered the half lion. Two more tears rolled down its nose, and these so affected Bob Up that he stepped bravely over and patted its mane.

"Harder!" cried the half lion, closing its eyes. "Harder! Harder!" Notta seized a stick and fell to patting the lion's head with this, but it kept roaring harder until Bob Up and Notta were perfectly breathless.

"Sorry," puffed the clown at last, "but we'll have to say good-bye now. We're on our way to the Emerald City."

"Are you?" The half lion opened its eyes and regarded them with new interest. "There's a wonderful wizard in the Emerald City," it began in a more cheerful roar. "Could you, would you, tell him about my sad separation? Tell him I am pining for my better half and perhaps he would put me together again. Promise to tell him." The poor beast was so earnest that he almost lost his balance.

"Why, certainly we will tell him," said Notta, who was the most obliging soul imaginable. "We'll be glad to, old fellow, but I didn't think there were any more wizards."

"No wizards?" coughed the lion, surveying the clown in amazement. "Why, Oz is full of wizards. Just keep going north and you'll soon find that out. I would go along with you, but I haven't quite learned to travel on two legs, and I'm so tired of standing."

"Why don't you sit down," asked Bob thoughtlessly. The lion groaned and looked at him reproachfully, and seeing it was going to cry again Notta began to move off.

"By the way," he asked, pausing suddenly, "did you come through Doorways?"

"Yes!" sobbed the lion, sniffing with each word, "through the right door."

"Which door was that?"

"I don't remember," sighed the half lion drearily. "I remember nothing nowadays. When I used to forget a fact all I had to do was to scratch my head with my hind leg and instantly it came back, but now—." The lion began to sob heavily.

"Well, good-bye!" said Notta uneasily, taking Bob's hand. "If we see this wizard you've mentioned we'll tell him your sad story."

"Good-bye," choked the lion, waving his paw feebly.

"I'd like to see a real wizard, Notta," said Bob Up, as they trudged down the dusty road.

"Odder and odder!" murmured the clown, shaking his head in bewilderment. "I declare, Bob, if you weren't along I should think I were asleep and dreaming all this."

"Here's another sign," whispered Bob Up in a low voice so the sign would not hear him. "Wonder if it talks too."

"I dare say they all can if they want to," replied Notta. "At any rate a sort of sign language."

"North Road to U," said this sign, in large blue letters.

"D stood for doorways. I wonder what U stands for?" mused the little boy, staring up at the sign with both hands in his pockets.

"Maybe it stands for us?" chuckled the clown, turning a handspring.

"You!" sneered the sign, giving itself a little shake. "Why, I wouldn't stand for you a single minute. I'd rather—." What it would rather Notta and Bob did not wait to hear. Seizing hands, they ran gaily down the road toward the unknown and curious country of U.