List of Chapters

CHAPTER 1

The Pasha of Rash

"Burnt again!" roared the Pasha of Rash, flinging his bowl of pudding across the table. "Vassals! Varlets! Villains! Fetch forth the cook!" At the Pasha's furious words the two Rash Footmen who stood behind his chair, took a running slide down the long dining hall and leaped through the door into the pantry. Several cups crashed against the door as it closed, so it is just as well that they hurried.

As the Pasha reached for a large sauce dish, Ippty, the Chief Scribe of the realm, slipped quietly under the table, where he began jotting down in a little note book each shocking remark about the pudding, making a huge blot whenever a plate broke or a cup splintered to fragments. He had to write pretty fast to keep up with the peppery little Pasha and covered three pages with notes and blots by the time the footmen returned with Hasha, the cook, shivering between them.

"So!" wheezed the Ruler of all the Rashes, puffing out his cheeks and glaring at the frightened little man, "Here you are!"

"Am!" choked the poor cook, falling upon his knees. "And may your Excellency live forever!"

"Live forever!" sputtered the Pasha, thumping the table with his fist, "On burnt puddings and raw roasts? It's a wonder I'm alive at all. Do you take me for an ostrich that you serve me lumps of charcoal and call it pudding? Are you a cook or a donkey?"

At this, Ippty lifted a corner of the table cloth and peered out to see what Hasha would say. Then, as the cook made no remark he calmly wrote "donkey," closed the little book and crept cautiously out from his hiding place. There were only three spoons left on the table and he felt pretty sure that these would be flung at Hasha and not at him. He was perfectly right about this and as the last one clattered down upon the head of the luckless cook, Hasha rose, and extending both arms began tremulously:

"I did not burn the pudding, Excellency, it was the fire."

"The fire?" raged the Pasha, his eyes fairly popping with indignation. "Do you hear that Ippty, he blames it on the fire. And who tends the fire, pray? Put him out! Fire him! Fizzenpop! Fizzenpop, you old rascal, where are you?"

"The fire shall be put out and the cook shall be fired," muttered Ippty, flipping his book open and scribbling away industriously. This, he could readily do, for the first finger of the Scribe's right hand was a fountain pen, his second finger a long yellow pencil, his third finger an eraser, his little finger a stick of sealing wax and his thumb a fat candle. Ippty's left hand was quite usual, except for the pen knife that served him for a thumb. Blotting the last entry in the book with his cuff, which was neatly cut from blotting paper, he turned expectantly toward the door, just as Fizzenpop, the Grand Vizier, came hurtling through. Being Grand Vizier of Rash was no easy task and Fizzenpop had grown thin and bald in the service of his country.

"What now?" he gasped, pulling on his slipper and looking anxiously from one to the other.

"Punish this pudding burner!" commanded the Pasha angrily. "Put him—"

"In jail!" chuckled Ippty. "In other words you are to incarcerate the cook." The Chief Scribe loved long words and knew almost as many as the crossword puzzle makers.

"But your Highness," objected the Grand Vizier, pointing his long finger, "the prison is already overcrowded. Could we not, could we not cut off his—" Hasha looked imploringly at Fizzenpop, and the Grand Vizier, clearing his throat, finished hastily, "cut off his allowance instead?"

"No!" thundered Irasha furiously, "I'll be peppered if I will. Prison is the place for him! Out of my sight, scullion!" He waved contemptously at the cook.

"All right," sighed Fizzenpop, "I'll put him in the cell with your grand uncle." (The Pasha's grand uncle had been flung into prison for beating the Rash sovereign at chess.) "But remember," warned the Grand Vizier, as Hasha was led disconsolately away by the guards, "remember there is not room for another person. Your Highness will have to find some other way to dispose of prisoners."

"What can I do?" mumbled the Pasha, leaning sulkily on his elbow.

"If you'd take my advice, you'd set them all free," said Fizzenpop calmly. "With half the population in prison, how do you expect to get any work done?"

"Well, why don't they behave themselves then?" demanded the Pasha fretfully. Fizzenpop sighed again, but made no further answer. What use to ask this wicked little ruler why he did not behave himself? Half the arrests in Rash were for no reason at all, and as you are probably puzzling about the location of this singular country, I must tell you that Rash is a small pink Kingdom, in the southwestern country of Ev and directly across the Deadly Desert from the Fairyland of Oz. The Rashes, it is true, are a hasty and hot-tempered race and always breaking out in spots, but they are warm-hearted and generous as well, and with just treatment and proper handling, as loyal subjects as a sovereign could ask for. But Irasha, the present Pasha, was neither just nor wise. He had seized the throne by treachery and was feared and hated by the entire Rash nation, so that one revolution followed another and the realm was in a constant state of uproar. Again and again poor old Fizzenpop would make up his mind to retire, but feeling that he could serve his countrymen better by remaining, had stayed on, enduring the terrible tempers of the Pasha and living for the day when the rightful ruler should be restored to the throne.