Kabumpo in Oz

“For my disappearance,” said Kabumpo, sweeping the door knob and mirror into his pocket. “I’m getting ready to disappear. How do I look?”

Before the Prime Pumper had time to answer, the Elegant Elephant was gone.

Back in his own room, Kabumpo paced impatiently up and down, waiting for night. “I do not see how she could refuse us,” he mumbled every now and then to himself.

That was an anxious afternoon and evening in the palace of Pumperdink. Every few minutes the Courtiers felt themselves nervously to see if they were still there. The servants went about on tip-toe, looking fearfully over their shoulders for the first signs of disappearance. As it grew darker the gates and windows were securely barred and not a candle was lighted. “The less the castle shows, the less likely it is to disappear,” reasoned the King.

The darkness suited Kabumpo. He waited until everyone in the palace had retired, and a full hour longer. Then he stepped softly down the passage to the Prince’s apartment. Pompadore, without undressing had flung himself upon a couch and fallen into an uneasy slumber.

Without making a sound, Kabumpo took the Prince’s crown from a dressing cabinet, slipped it carefully into the pocket of his robe, and then carefully lifted the sleeping Prince in his curling trunk and started cautiously down the great hall. Setting him gently on the floor as he reached the palace doors, he pushed back the golden bolts and stepped out into the garden.

The voices of the watchmen calling to each other from the great wall came faintly through the darkness, but the Elegant Elephant hurried to a secret unguarded entrance known only to himself and Pompadore and passed like a great shadow through the swinging gates. Once outside, he swung the sleeping Prince to his broad back and ran swiftly and silently through the night.

“What are we doing?” murmured the Prince drowsily in his sleep.

“Disappearing,” chuckled Kabumpo under his breath. “Disappearing from Pumperdink, my lad.”

Chapter 4
The Curious Cottabus Appears

“Ouch!” Prince Pompadore stirred uneasily and rolled over. “Ouch!” he groaned again, giving his pillow a fretful thump. “Ouch!” This time his eyes flew wide open, for his knuckles were tingling with pain.

“A rock!” gasped the Prince, sitting up indignantly. “A rock under my head! No wonder it aches! Great Gillikens! Where am I?” He stared about wildly. There was not a familiar object in sight. Indeed he was in a dim, deep forest, and from the distance came the sound of someone sawing wood.

“Oh! Oh! I know!” muttered the Prince, rubbing his head miserably. “It’s that wretched scroll. I’ve disappeared and this is the place I’ve disappeared to.” Stiffly he got to his feet and started to walk in the direction of the sawing, but had only gone a few steps before he gave a cry of joy, for there, leaning up against a tree, snoring like twenty wood-cutters at work, was Kabumpo.

“Wake up!” cried Pompadore, pounding him with all his might. “Wake up, Kabumpo. We’ve disappeared!”

“Have we?” yawned the Elegant Elephant, opening one eye. “You don’t say? Hah, Hoh, Hum!” With a tremendous yawn he opened the other eye and began to chuckle and shake all over.

“We stole a march on ’em, Pompa. I’d like to see the King’s face when he finds us gone. Old Pumper will be Oyezing all over the palace. He’ll think we’ve disappeared by magic.”

“Well, didn’t we?” asked Pompadore in amazement.

“Not unless you call me magic. I carried you off in the night. Did you suppose old Kabumpo was going to stand quietly by while they married you to a faggotty old fairy like Faleero? Not much,” wheezed the Elegant Elephant. “I have other plans for you, little one!”

“But this is terrible!” cried the Prince, catching hold of a tree. “Here you have left my poor old father, my lovely mother, and the whole Kingdom of Pumperdink to disappear. We’ll have to go right straight back—right straight back to Pumperdink. Do you hear?”

“Do have a little sense!” Kabumpo shook himself crossly. “You can’t save them by going back. The thing to do is to go forward, find the Proper Princess and marry her. No scroll magic takes effect for seven days, anyway!”

“How do you know?” asked Pompa anxiously.

“Read it in a witch book,” answered Kabumpo promptly. “Now, that gives us plenty of time to go to the Emerald City and present ourselves to the lovely ruler of Oz. There’s a Proper Princess for you, Pompa!”

“But suppose she refuses me,” said the Prince uncertainly.

“You’re very handsome, Pompa, my boy.” The Elegant Elephant gave the Prince a playful poke with his trunk. “I’ve brought all my jewels as gifts and the magic mirror and door knob as well. If she refuses you and the worst comes to the worst”—Kabumpo cleared his throat gravely—“well—just leave it to me!”

After a bit more coaxing and after eating the breakfast Kabumpo had thoughtfully brought along, Pompa allowed the Elegant Elephant to lift him on his head and off they set at Kabumpo’s best speed for the Emerald City of Oz.

Neither the Prince nor the Elegant Elephant had ever been out of Pumperdink, but Kabumpo had found an old map of Oz in the palace library. According to this map, the Emerald City lay directly to the South of their own country. “So all we have to do is to keep going South,” chuckled Kabumpo softly. Pompadore nodded, but he was trying to recall the exact words of the mysterious scroll:

“Know Ye, that unless ye Prince of ye ancient and honorable Kingdom of Pumperdink shall wed ye Proper Fairy Princess in ye proper span of time ye Kingdom of Pumperdink shall disappear forever and even longer from ye Gilliken Country of Oz. J. G.”

Pompadore repeated the words solemnly; then fell a-thinking of all he had heard of Ozma of Oz, the loveliest little fairy imaginable.

“She wouldn’t want one of her Kingdom to disappear,” reflected Pompadore sagely. Now, as it happened, Ozma did not even know of the existence of Pumperdink. Oz is so large and inhabited by so many strange and singular peoples that although fourteen books of history have been written about it, only half the story has been told. There are no Oz railway or steamship lines and traveling is tedious and slow, owing to the magic nature of the land itself, its many mountains and fairy forests, so that Pumperdink, like many of the small Kingdoms on the outskirts of Oz, has never been explored by Ozma.

Oz itself is a huge oblong country divided into four parts, the North being the purple Gilliken country, the East the blue Munchkin country, the South the red lands of the Quadlings, and the West the pleasant yellow country of the Winkies. In the very center of Oz, as almost every boy and girl knows, is the wonderful Emerald City, and in its gorgeous green palace lives Ozma, the lovely little Fairy Princess, whom Kabumpo wanted Pompadore to marry.

“Do you know,” mused the Prince, after they had traveled some time through the dim forest, “I believe that gold mirror has a lot to do with all this. I believe it was put in the cake to help me find the Proper Princess.”

“Where would you find a more Proper Princess than Ozma?” puffed Kabumpo indignantly. “Ozma is the one—depend upon it!”

“Just the same,” said Pompa firmly, “I’m going to try every Princess we meet!”

“Do you expect to find ’em running wild in the woods?” snorted Kabumpo, who didn’t like to be contradicted.

“You never can tell.” The Prince of Pumperdink settled back comfortably. Now that they were really started, he was finding traveling extremely interesting. “I should have done this long ago,” murmured the Prince to himself. “Every Prince should go on a journey of adventure.”

“How long will it take us to reach the Emerald City?” he asked presently.

“Two days, if nothing happens,” answered Kabumpo. “Say—what’s that?” He stopped short and spread his ears till they looked like sails. The underbrush at the right was crackling from the springs of some large animal, and next minute a hoarse voice roared:

“I want to know

The which and what,

The where and how and why?

A curious, luxurious

Old Cottabus am I!

I want to know the

When and who,

The whatfor and whyso, Sir!

So please attend, there is no end

To things I want to know, Sir!”

“Aha!” exulted the voice triumphantly. “There you are!” And a great round head was thrust out, almost in Kabumpo’s face. “Oh! I’m going to enjoy this. Don’t move!”

Kabumpo was too astonished to move, and the next instant the Cottabus had flounced out of the bushes and settled itself directly in front of the two travelers. It was large as a pony, but shaped like a great overfed cat. Its eyes bulged unpleasantly and the end of its tail ended in a large fan.

The Cottabus was as large as a pony, but shaped like a great overfed cat

“Well,” grunted Kabumpo after the strange creature had regarded them for a full minute without blinking.

“Well, what?” it asked, beginning to fan itself sulkily. “You act as if you had never seen a Cottabus before.”

“We never have,” admitted Pompa, peering over Kabumpo’s head and secretly wishing he had brought along his jeweled sword.

“Why haven’t you?” asked the Cottabus, rolling up its eyes. “How frightfully ignorant!” It closed its fan tail with a snap and looked up at them disapprovingly. “Will you kindly tell me who you are, where you came from, when you came, what you are going for, how you are going to get it, why you are going and what you are going to do when you do get it!”

“I don’t see why we should tell you all that,” grumbled Kabumpo. “It's none of your affair.”

“Wrong!” shrieked the creature hysterically. “It is the business of a Cottabus to find out everything. I live on other people’s affairs, and unless”—here it paused, took a large handkerchief out of a pocket in its fur and began to wipe its eyes—“unless a Cottabus asks fifty questions a day it curls up in its porch rocker and d-d-dies, and this is my fifth questionless day.”

“Curl up and die, then,” said Kabumpo gruffly. But the kind-hearted Prince felt sorry for the foolish creature.

“If we answer your questions, will you answer ours?”

“I’ll try,” sniffed the Curious Cottabus, and leaning over it dragged a rocking chair out of the bushes and seated itself comfortably.

“Well, then,” began Pompa, “this is the Elegant Elephant and I am a Prince. We came from Pumperdink because our Kingdom was threatened with disappearance unless I marry a Proper Princess.”

“Yes,” murmured the Cottabus, rocking violently. “Yes, yes!”

“And we are going to the Emerald City to ask Princess Ozma for her hand,” continued the Prince.

“How do you know she is the one? When did this happen? Who brought the message? What are you going to do if Ozma refuses you?” asked the Cottabus, leaning forward breathlessly.

“Are you going to stand talking to this ridiculous creature all day?” grumbled Kabumpo. But Pompadore, perhaps because he was so young, felt flattered that even a curious old Cottabus should take such an interest in his affairs. So beginning at the very beginning he told the whole story of his birthday party.

“Yes, yes,” gulped the Cottabus wildly each time the Prince paused for breath. “Yes, yes,” fluttering its fan excitedly. When Pompadore had finished the Cottabus leaned back, closed its eyes and put both paws on the arms of the rocker. “I never heard anything more curious in my life,” said the curious one. “This will keep me amused for three days!”

“Of course—that’s what we’re here for—to amuse you!” said Kabumpo scornfully. “Let's be going, Pompa!”

“Perhaps the Curious Cottabus can tell us something of the country ahead. Are there any Princesses living ’round here?” the Prince asked eagerly.

“Never heard of any,” said the Cottabus, opening its eyes. “Can you multiply—add—divide and subtract? Are you good at fractions, Prince?”

“Not very,” admitted Pompadore, looking mystified.

“Then you won’t make much headway,” sighed the Cottabus, shaking its head solemnly. “Now, don’t ask me why,” it added lugubriously, dragging its rocker back into the brush, and while Kabumpo and Pompa stared in amazement it wriggled away into the bushes.

“Come on,” cried Kabumpo with a contemptuous grunt, but he had only gone a few steps when the Curious Cottabus stuck its head out of an opening in the trees just ahead. “When are you coming back?” it asked, twitching its nose anxiously.

“Never!” trumpeted Kabumpo, increasing his speed. Again the Cottabus disappeared, only to reappear at the first turn in the road.

“Did you say the door knob hit you on the head?” it asked pleadingly.

Kabumpo gave a snort of anger and rushed along so fast that Pompa had to hang on for dear life.

“Guess we’ve left him behind this time,” spluttered the Elegant Elephant, after he had run almost a mile.

But at that minute there was a wheeze from the underbrush and the head of the Cottabus was thrust out. Its tongue was hanging out and it was panting with exhaustion. “How old are you?” it gasped rolling its eyes pitifully. “Who was your grandfather on your father’s side, and was he bald?”

“Kerumberty Bumpus!” raged the Elegant Elephant, flouncing to the other side of the road.

“But why was the door knob in the cake?” gulped the Cottabus, two tears trickling off its nose.

“How should we know,” said Pompa coldly.

“Then just tell me the date of your birth,” wailed the Cottabus, two tears trickling off its nose.

“No! No!” screamed Kabumpo, and this time he ran so fast that the tearful voice of the Cottabus became fainter and fainter and finally died away altogether.

“Provokingest creature I’ve ever met,” grumbled the Elegant Elephant, and this time Pompa agreed with him.

“Isn’t it almost lunch time?” asked the Prince. He was beginning to feel terribly hungry.

“And aren’t there any villages or cities between here and the Emerald City?” Pompa spoke again.

“Don’t know,” wheezed Kabumpo, swinging ahead.

“Oh! There’s a flag!” cried Pompa suddenly. “It’s flying above the tree tops just ahead.”

And so it was—a huge, flapping black flag covered with hundreds of figures and signs.

“Hurry up, Kabumpo,” urged the Prince. “This looks interesting.”