"
"Thank you," returned the Scarecrow, gratefully. "I feel like a new man; and
although at first glance I might be mistaken for a Safety Deposit Vault, I
beg you to remember that my Brains are still composed of the same old
material. And these are the possessions that have always made me a person to
be depended upon in an emergency."
"Well, the emergency is here," observed Tip; "and unless your brains help us
out of it we shall be compelled to pass the remainder of our lives in this
nest."
"How about these wishing pills?" enquired the Scarecrow, taking the box from
his jacket pocket. "Can't we use them to escape?"
"Not unless we can count seventeen by twos," answered the Tin Woodman. "But
our friend the Woggle-Bug claims to be highly educated, so he ought easily
to figure out how that can be done."
"It isn't a question of education," returned the Insect; "it's merely a
question of mathematics. I've seen the professor work lots of sums on the
blackboard, and he claimed anything could be done with x's and y's and a's,
and such things, by mixing them up with plenty of plusses and minuses and
equals, and so forth. But he never said anything, so far as
225
I can remember, about counting up to the odd number of seventeen by the even
numbers of twos."
"Stop! stop!" cried the Pumpkinhead. "You're making my head ache."
"And mine," added the Scarecrow. "Your mathematics seem to me very like a
bottle of mixed pickles the more you fish for what you want the less chance
you have of getting it.
Pages:
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149