the bottom of the palace. Everywhere the same sight met their gaze; rooms turned topsy turvy, and spread over floors and sofas and chairs the sleeping figures of Ozma's once lively Courtiers and servants. The effect was so distressing that Scraps and the Scarecrow found themselves whispering and treading about on tip-toe. After inspecting the whole palace they returned to Dorothy's room and placed themselves disconsolately in the doorway.
"Anyway, Ruggedo is quiet," sighed the Scarecrow, "and that is something."
Scraps started to make a verse, but the silence and the ghostlike atmosphere of the sleeping palace had dashed even the spirits of the Patch Work Girl and she subsided with an indistinct mumble.
Ruggedo was silent for a very good reason. Ruggedo was asleep, too—asleep sitting up as stiff as a stone image, for even in his sleep he dreamed of the dreaded bombardment of eggs.
All this had happened because the little man in gray had taken Ozma's palace for an air castle, and who could blame him for that? Even the Sand Man would not expect to find a regular palace set among the clouds. There are plenty of dream castles, to be sure, and one of the Sand Man's chief delights is to jump
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