"
"True; but he might send some one through
the Tube to punish you," suggested Kaliko.
"I'd like to see him do it! Who could conquer my
thousands of nomes?"
"Why, they've been conquered before, if I
remember aright," answered Kaliko with a grin.
"Once I saw you running from a little girl named
Dorothy, and her friends, as if you were really
afraid."
"Well, I was afraid, that time," admitted the
Nome King, with a deep sigh, "for Dorothy had a
Yellow Hen that laid eggs!"
The King shuddered as he said "eggs," and Kaliko
also shuddered, and so did the Long-Eared Hearer;
for eggs are the only things that the nomes
greatly dread. The reason for this is that eggs
belong on the earth's surface, where birds and
fowl of all sorts live, and there is something
about a hen's egg, especially, that fills a nome
with horror. If by chance the inside of an egg
touches one of these underground people, he
withers up and blows away and that is the end of
him--unless he manages quickly to speak a magical
word which only a few of the nomes know. Therefore
Ruggedo and his followers had very good cause to
shudder at the mere mention of eggs.
"But Dorothy," said the King, "is not with this
band of invaders; nor is the Yellow Hen. As for
Tititi-Hoochoo, he has no means of knowing that we
are afraid of eggs."
"You mustn't be too sure of that," Kaliko warned
him. "Tititi-Hoochoo knows a great many things,
being a fairy, and his powers are far superior to
any we can boast.
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