I did not wish to be
brought to life, and I am greatly ashamed of my conglomerate personality.
Once I was a monarch of the forest, as my antlers fully prove; but now, in
my present upholstered condition of servitude, I am compelled to fly through
the air -- my legs being of no use to me whatever. Therefore I beg to be
dispersed."
So Ozma ordered the Gump taken apart. The antlered head was again hung over
the mantle-piece in the hall, and the sofas were untied and placed in the
reception parlors. The broom tail resumed its accustomed duties in the
kitchen, and finally, the Scarecrow replaced all the clotheslines and ropes
on the pegs from which he had taken them on the eventful day when the Thing
was constructed.
You might think that was the end of the Gump; and so it was, as a flying-
machine. But the head over the mantle-piece continued to talk whenever it
took a notion to do so, and it frequently startled, with its abrupt
questions, the people who waited in the hall for an audience with the Queen.
The Saw-Horse, being Ozma's personal property, was tenderly cared for; and
often she rode the queer creature along the streets of the Emerald City. She
had its wooden legs shod with gold, to keep them
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from wearing out, and the tinkle of these golden shoes upon the pavement
always filled the Queen's subjects with awe as they thought upon this
evidence of her magical powers.
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