“Very well, I won’t touch it,” decided the kitten; “but you must keep it away from me, for the smell is very tempting.”

“Can you tell us, sir or ma’am,” said the Wizard, addressing the air because he did not quite know where the unseen people stood, “if there is any way we can get out of your beautiful Valley, and on top of the Earth again.”

“Oh, one can leave the Valley easily enough,” answered the man’s voice; “but to do so you must enter a far less pleasant country. As for reaching the top of the earth, I have never heard that it is possible to do that, and if you succeeded in getting there you would probably fall off.”

“Oh, no,” said Dorothy, “we’ve been there, and we know.”