The reason the Lion did not have to do as the Witch wished was that every night, while the woman was asleep, Dorothy carried him food from the cupboard. After he had eaten he would lie down on his bed of straw, and Dorothy would lie beside him and put her head on his soft, shaggy mane, while they talked of their troubles and tried to plan some way to escape. But they could find no way to get out of the castle, for it was constantly guarded by the yellow Winkies, who were the slaves of the Wicked Witch and too afraid of her not to do as she told them.
The girl had to work hard during the day, and often the Witch threatened to beat her with the same old umbrella she always carried in her hand. But, in truth, she did not dare to strike Dorothy, because of the mark upon her forehead. The child did not know this, and was full of fear for herself and Toto. Once the Witch struck Toto a blow with her umbrella and the brave little dog flew at her and bit her leg in return. The Witch did not bleed where she was bitten, for she was so wicked that the blood in her had dried up many years before.
Dorothy's life became very sad as she grew to understand that it would be harder than ever to get back to Kansas and Aunt Em again. Sometimes she would cry bitterly for hours, with Toto sitting at her feet and looking into her face, whining dismally to show how sorry he was for his little mistress. Toto did not really care whether he was in Kansas or the Land of Oz so long as Dorothy was with him; but he knew the little girl was unhappy, and that made him unhappy too.
Now the Wicked Witch had a great longing to have for her own the Silver Shoes which the girl always wore. Her bees and her crows and her wolves were lying in heaps and drying up, and she had used up all the power of the Golden Cap; but if she could only get hold of the Silver Shoes, they would give her more power than all the other things she had lost. She watched Dorothy carefully, to see if she ever took off her shoes, thinking she might steal them. But the child was so proud of her pretty shoes that she never took them off except at night and when she took her bath. The Witch was too much afraid of the dark to dare go in Dorothy's room at night to take the shoes, and her dread of water was greater than her fear of the dark, so she never came near when Dorothy was bathing. Indeed, the old Witch never touched water, nor ever let water touch her in any way.
But the wicked creature was very cunning, and she finally thought of a trick that would give her what she wanted. She placed a bar of iron in the middle of the kitchen floor, and then by her magic arts made the iron invisible to human eyes. So that when Dorothy walked across the floor she stumbled over the bar, not being able to see it, and fell at full length. She was not much hurt, but in her fall one of the Silver Shoes came off; and before she could reach it, the Witch had snatched it away and put it on her own skinny foot.
The wicked woman was greatly pleased with the success of her trick, for as long as she had one of the shoes she owned half the power of their charm, and Dorothy could not use it against her, even had she known how to do so.
The little girl, seeing she had lost one of her pretty shoes, grew angry, and said to the Witch, "Give me back my shoe!"
"I will not," retorted the Witch, "for it is now my shoe, and not yours."
 cried Dorothy. "You have no right to take my shoe from me."
"I shall keep it, just the same," said the Witch, laughing at her, "and someday I shall get the other one from you, too."
This made Dorothy so very angry that she picked up the bucket of water that stood near and dashed it over the Witch, wetting her from head to foot.
Instantly the wicked woman gave a loud cry of fear, and then, as Dorothy looked at her in wonder, the Witch began to shrink and fall away.
"See what you have done!" she screamed. "In a minute I shall melt away."
"I'm very sorry, indeed," said Dorothy, who was truly frightened to see the Witch actually melting away like brown sugar before her very eyes.
"Didn't you know water would be the end of me?" asked the Witch, in a wailing, despairing voice.
"Of course not," answered Dorothy. "How should I?"
"Well, in a few minutes I shall be all melted, and you will have the castle to yourself.  Look out—here I go!"
With these words the Witch fell down in a brown, melted, shapeless mass and began to spread over the clean boards of the kitchen floor. Seeing that she had really melted away to nothing, Dorothy drew another bucket of water and threw it over the mess. She then swept it all out the door. After picking out the silver shoe, which was all that was left of the old woman, she cleaned and dried it with a cloth, and put it on her foot again. Then, being at last free to do as she chose, she ran out to the courtyard to tell the Lion that the Wicked Witch of the West had come to an end, and that they were no longer prisoners in a strange land.
The Cowardly Lion was much pleased to hear that the Wicked Witch had been melted by a bucket of water, and Dorothy at once unlocked the gate of his prison and set him free. They went in together to the castle, where Dorothy's first act was to call all the Winkies together and tell them that they were no longer slaves.
There was great rejoicing among the yellow Winkies, for they had been made to work hard during many years for the Wicked Witch, who had always treated them with great cruelty. They kept this day as a holiday, then and ever after, and spent the time in feasting and dancing.
"If our friends, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, were only with us," said the Lion, "I should be quite happy."
"Don't you suppose we could rescue them?" asked the girl anxiously.
"We can try," answered the Lion.
So they called the yellow Winkies and asked them if they would help to rescue their friends, and the Winkies said that they would be delighted to do all in their power for Dorothy, who had set them free from bondage. So she chose a number of the Winkies who looked as if they knew the most, and they all started away. They traveled that day and part of the next until they came to the rocky plain where the Tin Woodman lay, all battered and bent. His axe was near him, but the blade was rusted and the handle broken off short.
The Winkies lifted him tenderly in their arms, and carried him back to the Yellow Castle again, Dorothy shedding a few tears by the way at the sad plight of her old friend, and the Lion looking sober and sorry. When they reached the castle Dorothy said to the Winkies:
"Are any of your people tinsmiths?"
"Oh, yes. Some of us are very good tinsmiths," they told her.
"Then bring them to me," she said. And when the tinsmiths came, bringing with them all their tools in baskets, she inquired, "Can you straighten out those dents in the Tin Woodman, and bend him back into shape again, and solder him together where he is broken?"
The tinsmiths looked the Woodman over carefully and then answered that they thought they could mend him so he would be as good as ever. So they set to work in one of the big yellow rooms of the castle and worked for three days and four nights, hammering and twisting and bending and soldering and polishing and pounding at the legs and body and head of the Tin Woodman, until at last he was straightened out into his old form, and his joints worked as well as ever. To be sure, there were several patches on him, but the tinsmiths did a good job, and as the Woodman was not a vain man he did not mind the patches at all.
When, at last, he walked into Dorothy's room and thanked her for rescuing him, he was so pleased that he wept tears of joy, and Dorothy had to wipe every tear carefully from his face with her apron, so his joints would not be rusted. At the same time her own tears fell thick and fast at the joy of meeting her old friend again, and these tears did not need to be wiped away. As for the Lion, he wiped his eyes so often with the tip of his tail that it became quite wet, and he was obliged to go out into the courtyard and hold it in the sun till it dried.
"If we only had the Scarecrow with us again," said the Tin Woodman, when Dorothy had finished telling him everything that had happened, "I should be quite happy."
"We must try to find him," said the girl.
So she called the Winkies to help her, and they walked all that day and part of the next until they came to the tall tree in the branches of which the Winged Monkeys had tossed the Scarecrow's clothes.
It was a very tall tree, and the trunk was so smooth that no one could climb it; but the Woodman said at once, "I'll chop it down, and then we can get the Scarecrow's clothes."
Now while the tinsmiths had been at work mending the Woodman himself, another of the Winkies, who was a goldsmith, had made an axe-handle of solid gold and fitted it to the Woodman's axe, instead of the old broken handle. Others polished the blade until all the rust was removed and it glistened like burnished silver.
As soon as he had spoken, the Tin Woodman began to chop, and in a short time the tree fell over with a crash, whereupon the Scarecrow's clothes fell out of the branches and rolled off on the ground.
Dorothy picked them up and had the Winkies carry them back to the castle, where they were stuffed with nice, clean straw; and behold! here was the Scarecrow, as good as ever, thanking them over and over again for saving him.
Now that they were reunited, Dorothy and her friends spent a few happy days at the Yellow Castle, where they found everything they needed to make them comfortable.
But one day the girl thought of Aunt Em, and said, "We must go back to Oz, and claim his promise."
"Yes," said the Woodman, "at last I shall get my heart."
"And I shall get my brains," added the Scarecrow joyfully.
"And I shall get my courage," said the Lion thoughtfully.
"And I shall get back to Kansas," cried Dorothy, clapping her hands. "Oh, let us start for the Emerald City tomorrow!"
This they decided to do. The next day they called the Winkies together and bade them good-bye. The Winkies were sorry to have them go, and they had grown so fond of the Tin Woodman that they begged him to stay and rule over them and the Yellow Land of the West. Finding they were determined to go, the Winkies gave Toto and the Lion each a golden collar; and to Dorothy they presented a beautiful bracelet studded with diamonds; and to the Scarecrow they gave a gold-headed walking stick, to keep him from stumbling; and to the Tin Woodman they offered a silver oil-can, inlaid with gold and set with precious jewels.
Every one of the travelers made the Winkies a pretty speech in return, and all shook hands with them until their arms ached.
Dorothy went to the Witch's cupboard to fill her basket with food for the journey, and there she saw the Golden Cap. She tried it on her own head and found that it fitted her exactly. She did not know anything about the charm of the Golden Cap, but she saw that it was pretty, so she made up her mind to wear it and carry her sunbonnet in the basket.
Then, being prepared for the journey, they all started for the Emerald City; and the Winkies gave them three cheers and many good wishes to carry with them.
You will remember there was no road—not even a pathway—between the castle of the Wicked Witch and the Emerald City. When the four travelers went in search of the Witch she had seen them coming, and so sent the Winged Monkeys to bring them to her. It was much harder to find their way back through the big fields of buttercups and yellow daisies than it was being carried. They knew, of course, they must go straight east, toward the rising sun; and they started off in the right way. But at noon, when the sun was over their heads, they did not know which was east and which was west, and that was the reason they were lost in the great fields. They kept on walking, however, and at night the moon came out and shone brightly. So they lay down among the sweet smelling yellow flowers and slept soundly until morning—all but the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman.
The next morning the sun was behind a cloud, but they started on, as if they were quite sure which way they were going.
"If we walk far enough," said Dorothy, "I am sure we shall sometime come to some place."
But day by day passed away, and they still saw nothing before them but the scarlet fields. The Scarecrow began to grumble a bit.
"We have surely lost our way," he said, "and unless we find it again in time to reach the Emerald City, I shall never get my brains."
"Nor I my heart," declared the Tin Woodman. "It seems to me I can scarcely wait till I get to Oz, and you must admit this is a very long journey."
"You see," said the Cowardly Lion, with a whimper, "I haven't the courage to keep tramping forever, without getting anywhere at all."
Then Dorothy lost heart. She sat down on the grass and looked at her companions, and they sat down and looked at her, and Toto found that for the first time in his life he was too tired to chase a butterfly that flew past his head. So he put out his tongue and panted and looked at Dorothy as if to ask what they should do next.
"Suppose we call the field mice," she suggested. "They could probably tell us the way to the Emerald City."
"To be sure they could," cried the Scarecrow. "Why didn't we think of that before?"
Dorothy blew the little whistle she had always carried about her neck since the Queen of the Mice had given it to her. In a few minutes they heard the pattering of tiny feet, and many of the small gray mice came running up to her. Among them was the Queen herself, who asked, in her squeaky little voice:
"What can I do for my friends?"
"We have lost our way," said Dorothy. "Can you tell us where the Emerald City is?"
"Certainly," answered the Queen; "but it is a great way off, for you have had it at your backs all this time." Then she noticed Dorothy's Golden Cap, and said, "Why don't you use the charm of the Cap, and call the Winged Monkeys to you? They will carry you to the City of Oz in less than an hour."
"I didn't know there was a charm," answered Dorothy, in surprise. "What is it?"
"It is written inside the Golden Cap," replied the Queen of the Mice. "But if you are going to call the Winged Monkeys we must run away, for they are full of mischief and think it great fun to plague us."
"Won't they hurt me?" asked the girl anxiously.
"Oh, no. They must obey the wearer of the Cap. Good-bye!" And she scampered out of sight, with all the mice hurrying after her.
Dorothy looked inside the Golden Cap and saw some words written upon the lining.
"Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke!" she said, standing on her left foot.
"What did you say?" asked the Scarecrow, who did not know what she was doing.
"Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo!"
"Hello!" replied the Tin Woodman calmly.
"Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!" said Dorothy, who was now standing on both feet. This ended the saying of the charm, and they heard a great chattering and flapping of wings, as the band of Winged Monkeys flew up to them.
The King bowed low before Dorothy, and asked, "What is your command?"
"We wish to go to the Emerald City," said the child, "and we have lost our way."
"We will carry you," replied the King, and no sooner had he spoken than two of the Monkeys caught Dorothy in their arms and flew away with her. Others took the Scarecrow and the Woodman and the Lion, and one little Monkey seized Toto and flew after them, although the dog tried hard to bite him.
The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were rather frightened at first, for they remembered how badly the Winged Monkeys had treated them before; but they saw that no harm was intended, so they rode through the air quite cheerfully, and had a fine time looking at the pretty gardens and woods far below them.
Dorothy found herself riding easily between two of the biggest Monkeys, one of them the King himself. They had made a chair of their hands and were careful not to hurt her.
"Why do you have to obey the charm of the Golden Cap?" she asked.
"That is a long story," answered the King, with a Winged laugh; "but as we have a long journey before us, I will pass the time by telling you about it, if you wish."
"I shall be glad to hear it," she replied.
"Once," began the leader, "we were a free people, living happily in the great forest, flying from tree to tree, eating nuts and fruit, and doing just as we pleased without calling anybody master. Perhaps some of us were rather too full of mischief at times, flying down to pull the tails of the animals that had no wings, chasing birds, and throwing nuts at the people who walked in the forest. But we were careless and happy and full of fun, and enjoyed every minute of the day. This was many years ago, long before Oz came out of the clouds to rule over this land.
"There lived here then, away at the North, a beautiful princess, who was also a powerful sorceress. All her magic was used to help the people, and she was never known to hurt anyone who was good. Her name was Gayelette, and she lived in a handsome palace built from great blocks of ruby. Everyone loved her, but her greatest sorrow was that she could find no one to love in return, since all the men were much too stupid and ugly to mate with one so beautiful and wise. At last, however, she found a boy who was handsome and manly and wise beyond his years. Gayelette made up her mind that when he grew to be a man she would make him her husband, so she took him to her ruby palace and used all her magic powers to make him as strong and good and lovely as any woman could wish. When he grew to manhood, Quelala, as he was called, was said to be the best and wisest man in all the land, while his manly beauty was so great that Gayelette loved him dearly, and hastened to make everything ready for the wedding.
"My grandfather was at that time the King of the Winged Monkeys which lived in the forest near Gayelette's palace, and the old fellow loved a joke better than a good dinner. One day, just before the wedding, my grandfather was flying out with his band when he saw Quelala walking beside the river. He was dressed in a rich costume of pink silk and purple velvet, and my grandfather thought he would see what he could do.  Quelala was much too wise not to swim, and he was not in the least spoiled by all his good fortune. He laughed, when he came to the top of the water, and swam in to shore. But when Gayelette came running out to him she found his silks and velvet all ruined by the river.
"The princess was angry, and she knew, of course, who did it. She had all the Winged Monkeys brought before her, and she said at first that their wings should be tied and they should be treated as they had treated Quelala, and dropped in the river. But my grandfather pleaded hard, for he knew the Monkeys would drown in the river with their wings tied, and Quelala said a kind word for them also; so that Gayelette finally spared them, on condition that the Winged Monkeys should ever after do three times the bidding of the owner of the Golden Cap. This Cap had been made for a wedding present to Quelala, and it is said to have cost the princess half her kingdom. Of course my grandfather and all the other Monkeys at once agreed to the condition, and that is how it happens that we are three times the slaves of the owner of the Golden Cap, whosoever he may be."
"And what became of them?" asked Dorothy, who had been greatly interested in the story.
"Quelala being the first owner of the Golden Cap," replied the Monkey, "he was the first to lay his wishes upon us. As his bride could not bear the sight of us, he called us all to him in the forest after he had married her and ordered us always to keep where she could never again set eyes on a Winged Monkey, which we were glad to do, for we were all afraid of her.
"This was all we ever had to do until the Golden Cap fell into the hands of the Wicked Witch of the West, who made us enslave the Winkies, and afterward drive Oz himself out of the Land of the West. Now the Golden Cap is yours, and three times you have the right to lay your wishes upon us."
As the Monkey King finished his story Dorothy looked down and saw the green, shining walls of the Emerald City before them. She wondered at the rapid flight of the Monkeys, but was glad the journey was over. The strange creatures set the travelers down carefully before the gate of the City, the King bowed low to Dorothy, and then flew swiftly away, followed by all his band.
"That was a good ride," said the little girl.
"Yes, and a quick way out of our troubles," replied the Lion. "How lucky it was you brought away that wonderful Cap!"
The four travelers walked up to the great gate of Emerald City and rang the bell. After ringing several times, it was opened by the same Guardian of the Gates they had met before.
"What! are you back again?" he asked, in surprise.
"Do you not see us?" answered the Scarecrow.
"But I thought you had gone to visit the Wicked Witch of the West."
"We did visit her," said the Scarecrow.
 asked the man, in wonder.
"She could not help it, for she is melted," explained the Scarecrow.
"Melted! Well, that is good news, indeed," said the man. "Who melted her?"
"It was Dorothy," said the Lion gravely.
"Good gracious!" exclaimed the man, and he bowed very low indeed before her.
Then he led them into his little room and locked the spectacles from the great box on all their eyes, just as he had done before. Afterward they passed on through the gate into the Emerald City. When the people heard from the Guardian of the Gates that Dorothy had melted the Wicked Witch of the West, they all gathered around the travelers and followed them in a great crowd to the Palace of Oz.
The soldier with the green whiskers was still on guard before the door, but he let them in at once, and they were again met by the beautiful green girl, who showed each of them to their old rooms at once, so they might rest until the Great Oz was ready to receive them.
The soldier had the news carried straight to Oz that Dorothy and the other travelers had come back again, after destroying the Wicked Witch; but Oz made no reply. They thought the Great Wizard would send for them at once, but he did not. They had no word from him the next day, nor the next, nor the next. The waiting was tiresome and wearing, and at last they grew vexed that Oz should treat them in so poor a fashion, after sending them to undergo hardships and slavery. So the Scarecrow at last asked the green girl to take another message to Oz, saying if he did not let them in to see him at once they would call the Winged Monkeys to help them, and find out whether he kept his promises or not. When the Wizard was given this message he was so frightened that he sent word for them to come to the Throne Room at four minutes after nine o'clock the next morning. He had once met the Winged Monkeys in the Land of the West, and he did not wish to meet them again.
The four travelers passed a sleepless night, each thinking of the gift Oz had promised to bestow on him. Dorothy fell asleep only once, and then she dreamed she was in Kansas, where Aunt Em was telling her how glad she was to have her little girl at home again.
Promptly at nine o'clock the next morning the green-whiskered soldier came to them, and four minutes later they all went into the Throne Room of the Great Oz.
Of course each one of them expected to see the Wizard in the shape he had taken before, and all were greatly surprised when they looked about and saw no one at all in the room. They kept close to the door and closer to one another, for the stillness of the empty room was more dreadful than any of the forms they had seen Oz take.
Presently they heard a solemn Voice, that seemed to come from somewhere near the top of the great dome, and it said:
"I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Why do you seek me?"
They looked again in every part of the room, and then, seeing no one, Dorothy asked, "Where are you?"
"I am everywhere," answered the Voice, "but to the eyes of common mortals I am invisible. I will now seat myself upon my throne, that you may converse with me." Indeed, the Voice seemed just then to come straight from the throne itself; so they walked toward it and stood in a row while Dorothy said:
"We have come to claim our promise, O Oz."
"What promise?" asked Oz.
"You promised to send me back to Kansas when the Wicked Witch was destroyed," said the girl.
"And you promised to give me brains," said the Scarecrow.
"And you promised to give me a heart," said the Tin Woodman.
"And you promised to give me courage," said the Cowardly Lion.
"Is the Wicked Witch really destroyed?" asked the Voice, and Dorothy thought it trembled a little.
"Yes," she answered, "I melted her with a bucket of water."
"Dear me," said the Voice, "how sudden! Well, come to me tomorrow, for I must have time to think it over."
"You've had plenty of time already," said the Tin Woodman angrily.
"We shan't wait a day longer," said the Scarecrow.
"You must keep your promises to us!" exclaimed Dorothy.
The Lion thought it might be as well to frighten the Wizard, so he gave a large, loud roar, which was so fierce and dreadful that Toto jumped away from him in alarm and tipped over the screen that stood in a corner. As it fell with a crash they looked that way, and the next moment all of them were filled with wonder. For they saw, standing in just the spot the screen had hidden, a little old man, with a bald head and a wrinkled face, who seemed to be as much surprised as they were. The Tin Woodman, raising his axe, rushed toward the little man and cried out, "Who are you?"
"I am Oz, the Great and Terrible," said the little man, in a trembling voice. "But don't strike me—please don't—and I'll do anything you want me to."
Our friends looked at him in surprise and dismay.
"I thought Oz was a great Head," said Dorothy.
"And I thought Oz was a lovely Lady," said the Scarecrow.
"And I thought Oz was a terrible Beast," said the Tin Woodman.
"And I thought Oz was a Ball of Fire," exclaimed the Lion.
 "I have been making believe."
"Making believe!" cried Dorothy. "Are you not a Great Wizard?"
"Hush, my dear," he said. "Don't speak so loud, or you will be overheard—and I should be ruined. I'm supposed to be a Great Wizard."
"And aren't you?" she asked.
"Not a bit of it, my dear; I'm just a common man."
"You're more than that," said the Scarecrow, in a grieved tone; "you're a humbug."
"Exactly so!" declared the little man, rubbing his hands together as if it pleased him. "I am a humbug."
"But this is terrible," said the Tin Woodman. "How shall I ever get my heart?"
"Or I my courage?" asked the Lion.
"Or I my brains?" wailed the Scarecrow, wiping the tears from his eyes with his coat sleeve.
"My dear friends," said Oz, "I pray you not to speak of these little things. Think of me, and the terrible trouble I'm in at being found out."
 asked Dorothy.
"No one knows it but you four—and myself," replied Oz. "I have fooled everyone so long that I thought I should never be found out. It was a great mistake my ever letting you into the Throne Room. Usually I will not see even my subjects, and so they believe I am something terrible."
"But, I don't understand," said Dorothy, in bewilderment. "How was it that you appeared to me as a great Head?"
"That was one of my tricks," answered Oz. "Step this way, please, and I will tell you all about it."
He led the way to a small chamber in the rear of the Throne Room, and they all followed him. He pointed to one corner, in which lay the great Head, made out of many thicknesses of paper, and with a carefully painted face.
"This I hung from the ceiling by a wire," said Oz. "I stood behind the screen and pulled a thread, to make the eyes move and the mouth open."
"But how about the voice?" she inquired.
"Oh, I am a ventriloquist," said the little man. "I can throw the sound of my voice wherever I wish, so that you thought it was coming out of the Head. Here are the other things I used to deceive you." He showed the Scarecrow the dress and the mask he had worn when he seemed to be the lovely Lady. And the Tin Woodman saw that his terrible Beast was nothing but a lot of skins, sewn together, with slats to keep their sides out. As for the Ball of Fire, the false Wizard had hung that also from the ceiling. It was really a ball of cotton, but when oil was poured upon it the ball burned fiercely.

"I am—I certainly am," answered the little man sorrowfully; "but it was the only thing I could do. Sit down, please, there are plenty of chairs; and I will tell you my story."
So they sat down and listened while he told the following tale.
"I was born in Omaha—"
"Why, that isn't very far from Kansas!" cried Dorothy.
"No, but it's farther from here," he said, shaking his head at her sadly. "When I grew up I became a ventriloquist, and at that I was very well trained by a great master. I can imitate any kind of a bird or beast." Here he mewed so like a kitten that Toto pricked up his ears and looked everywhere to see where she was. "After a time," continued Oz, "I tired of that, and became a balloonist."
"What is that?" asked Dorothy.
"A man who goes up in a balloon on circus day, so as to draw a crowd of people together and get them to pay to see the circus," he explained.
"Oh," she said, "I know."
"Well, one day I went up in a balloon and the ropes got twisted, so that I couldn't come down again. It went way up above the clouds, so far that a current of air struck it and carried it many, many miles away. For a day and a night I traveled through the air, and on the morning of the second day I awoke and found the balloon floating over a strange and beautiful country.
"It came down gradually, and I was not hurt a bit. But I found myself in the midst of a strange people, who, seeing me come from the clouds, thought I was a great Wizard. Of course I let them think so, because they were afraid of me, and promised to do anything I wished them to.
"Just to amuse myself, and keep the good people busy, I ordered them to build this City, and my Palace; and they did it all willingly and well. Then I thought, as the country was so green and beautiful, I would call it the Emerald City; and to make the name fit better I put green spectacles on all the people, so that everything they saw was green."
"But isn't everything here green?" asked Dorothy.
"No more than in any other city," replied Oz; "but when you wear green spectacles, why of course everything you see looks green to you. The Emerald City was built a great many years ago, for I was a young man when the balloon brought me here, and I am a very old man now. But my people have worn green glasses on their eyes so long that most of them think it really is an Emerald City, and it certainly is a beautiful place, abounding in jewels and precious metals, and every good thing that is needed to make one happy. I have been good to the people, and they like me; but ever since this Palace was built, I have shut myself up and would not see any of them.
"One of my greatest fears was the Witches, for while I had no magical powers at all I soon found out that the Witches were really able to do wonderful things. There were four of them in this country, and they ruled the people who live in the North and South and East and West. Fortunately, the Witches of the North and South were good, and I knew they would do me no harm; but the Witches of the East and West were terribly wicked, and had they not thought I was more powerful than they themselves, they would surely have destroyed me. As it was, I lived in deadly fear of them for many years; so you can imagine how pleased I was when I heard your house had fallen on the Wicked Witch of the East. When you came to me, I was willing to promise anything if you would only do away with the other Witch; but, now that you have melted her, I am ashamed to say that I cannot keep my promises."

"Oh, no, my dear; I'm really a very good man, but I'm a very bad Wizard, I must admit."
"Can't you give me brains?" asked the Scarecrow.
"You don't need them. You are learning something every day. A baby has brains, but it doesn't know much. Experience is the only thing that brings knowledge, and the longer you are on earth the more experience you are sure to get."
"That may all be true," said the Scarecrow, "but I shall be very unhappy unless you give me brains."
The false Wizard looked at him carefully.
"Well," he said with a sigh, "I'm not much of a magician, as I said; but if you will come to me tomorrow morning, I will stuff your head with brains. I cannot tell you how to use them, however; you must find that out for yourself."
"Oh, thank you—thank you!" cried the Scarecrow. "I'll find a way to use them, never fear!"
"But how about my courage?" asked the Lion anxiously.
"You have plenty of courage, I am sure," answered Oz. "All you need is confidence in yourself. There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The True courage is in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty."
"Perhaps I have, but I'm scared just the same," said the Lion. "I shall really be very unhappy unless you give me the sort of courage that makes one forget he is afraid."
"Very well, I will give you that sort of courage tomorrow," replied Oz.
"How about my heart?" asked the Tin Woodman.
"Why, as for that," answered Oz, "I think you are wrong to want a heart. It makes most people unhappy. If you only knew it, you are in luck not to have a heart."
"That must be a matter of opinion," said the Tin Woodman. "For my part, I will bear all the unhappiness without a murmur, if you will give me the heart."
"Very well," answered Oz meekly. "Come to me tomorrow and you shall have a heart. I have played Wizard for so many years that I may as well continue the part a little longer."
"And now," said Dorothy, "how am I to get back to Kansas?"
"We shall have to think about that," replied the little man. "Give me two or three days to consider the matter and I'll try to find a way to carry you over the desert.  There is only one thing I ask in return for my help—such as it is. You must keep my secret and tell no one I am a humbug."
They agreed to say nothing of what they had learned, and went back to their rooms in high spirits. Even Dorothy had hope that "The Great and Terrible Humbug," as she called him, would find a way to send her back to Kansas, and if he did she was willing to forgive him everything.
Next morning the Scarecrow said to his friends:
"Congratulate me. I am going to Oz to get my brains at last. When I return I shall be as other men are."
"I have always liked you as you were," said Dorothy simply.
"It is kind of you to like a Scarecrow," he replied. "But surely you will think more of me when you hear the splendid thoughts my new brain is going to turn out." Then he said good-bye to them all in a cheerful voice and went to the Throne Room, where he rapped upon the door.
"Come in," said Oz.
The Scarecrow went in and found the little man sitting down by the window, engaged in deep thought.
"I have come for my brains," remarked the Scarecrow, a little uneasily.
"Oh, yes; sit down in that chair, please," replied Oz. "You must excuse me for taking your head off, but I shall have to do it in order to put your brains in their proper place."
"That's all right," said the Scarecrow. "You are quite welcome to take my head off, as long as it will be a better one when you put it on again."
So the Wizard unfastened his head and emptied out the straw. Then he entered the back room and took up a measure of bran, which he mixed with a great many pins and needles. Having shaken them together thoroughly, he filled the top of the Scarecrow's head with the mixture and stuffed the rest of the space with straw, to hold it in place.
When he had fastened the Scarecrow's head on his body again he said to him, "Hereafter you will be a great man, for I have given you a lot of bran-new brains."
The Scarecrow was both pleased and proud at the fulfillment of his greatest wish, and having thanked Oz warmly he went back to his friends.
Dorothy looked at him curiously. His head was quite bulged out at the top with brains.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
"I feel wise indeed," he answered earnestly. "When I get used to my brains I shall know everything."
"Why are those needles and pins sticking out of your head?" asked the Tin Woodman.
"That is proof that he is sharp," remarked the Lion.
"Well, I must go to Oz and get my heart," said the Woodman. So he walked to the Throne Room and knocked at the door.
"Come in," called Oz, and the Woodman entered and said, "I have come for my heart."
"Very well," answered the little man. "But I shall have to cut a hole in your breast, so I can put your heart in the right place. I hope it won't hurt you."
"Oh, no," answered the Woodman. "I shall not feel it at all."
So Oz brought a pair of tinsmith's shears and cut a small, square hole in the left side of the Tin Woodman's breast. Then, going to a chest of drawers, he took out a pretty heart, made entirely of silk and stuffed with sawdust.
"Isn't it a beauty?" he asked.
"It is, indeed!" replied the Woodman, who was greatly pleased. "But is it a kind heart?"
"Oh, very!" answered Oz. He put the heart in the Woodman's breast and then replaced the square of tin, soldering it neatly together where it had been cut.
"There," said he; "now you have a heart that any man might be proud of. I'm sorry I had to put a patch on your breast, but it really couldn't be helped."
"Never mind the patch," exclaimed the happy Woodman. "I am very grateful to you, and shall never forget your kindness."
"Don't speak of it," replied Oz.
Then the Tin Woodman went back to his friends, who wished him every joy on account of his good fortune.
The Lion now walked to the Throne Room and knocked at the door.
"Come in," said Oz.
"I have come for my courage," announced the Lion, entering the room.
"Very well," answered the little man; "I will get it for you."
He went to a cupboard and reaching up to a high shelf took down a square green bottle, the contents of which he poured into a green-gold dish, beautifully carved. Placing this before the Cowardly Lion, who sniffed at it as if he did not like it, the Wizard said:
"Drink."
"What is it?" asked the Lion.
"Well," answered Oz, "if it were inside of you, it would be courage. You know, of course, that courage is always inside one; so that this really cannot be called courage until you have swallowed it. Therefore I advise you to drink it as soon as possible."
The Lion hesitated no longer, but drank till the dish was empty.
"How do you feel now?" asked Oz.
"Full of courage," replied the Lion, who went joyfully back to his friends to tell them of his good fortune.
Oz, left to himself, smiled to think of his success in giving the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Lion exactly what they thought they wanted. "How can I help being a humbug," he said, "when all these people make me do things that everybody knows can't be done? It was easy to make the Scarecrow and the Lion and the Woodman happy, because they imagined I could do anything. But it will take more than imagination to carry Dorothy back to Kansas, and I'm sure I don't know how it can be done."
For three days Dorothy heard nothing from Oz. These were sad days for the little girl, although her friends were all quite happy and contented. The Scarecrow told them there were wonderful thoughts in his head; but he would not say what they were because he knew no one could understand them but himself. When the Tin Woodman walked about he felt his heart rattling around in his breast; and he told Dorothy he had discovered it to be a kinder and more tender heart than the one he had owned when he was made of flesh. The Lion declared he was afraid of nothing on earth, and would gladly face an army or a dozen of the fierce Kalidahs.
Thus each of the little party was satisfied except Dorothy, who longed more than ever to get back to Kansas.
On the fourth day, to her great joy, Oz sent for her, and when she entered the Throne Room he greeted her pleasantly:
"Sit down, my dear; I think I have found the way to get you out of this country."
"And back to Kansas?" she asked eagerly.
"Well, I'm not sure about Kansas," said Oz, "for I haven't the faintest notion which way it lies. But the first thing to do is to cross the desert, and then it should be easy to find your way home."
"How can I cross the desert?" she inquired.
"Well, I'll tell you what I think," said the little man. "You see, when I came to this country it was in a balloon. You also came through the air, being carried by a cyclone. So I believe the best way to get across the desert will be through the air. Now, it is quite beyond my powers to make a cyclone; but I've been thinking the matter over, and I believe I can make a balloon."
"How?" asked Dorothy.
"A balloon," said Oz, "is made of silk, which is coated with glue to keep the gas in it. I have plenty of silk in the Palace, so it will be no trouble to make the balloon. But in all this country there is no gas to fill the balloon with, to make it float."
"If it won't float," remarked Dorothy, "it will be of no use to us."
"True," answered Oz. "But there is another way to make it float, which is to fill it with hot air. Hot air isn't as good as gas, for if the air should get cold the balloon would come down in the desert, and we should be lost."
"We!" exclaimed the girl. "Are you going with me?"
"Yes, of course," replied Oz. "I am tired of being such a humbug. If I should go out of this Palace my people would soon discover I am not a Wizard, and then they would be vexed with me for having deceived them.  I'd much rather go back to Kansas with you and be in a circus again."
"I shall be glad to have your company," said Dorothy.
"Thank you," he answered. "Now, if you will help me sew the silk together, we will begin to work on our balloon."
So Dorothy took a needle and thread, and as fast as Oz cut the strips of silk into proper shape the girl sewed them neatly together. First there was a strip of light green silk, then a strip of dark green and then a strip of emerald green; for Oz had a fancy to make the balloon in different shades of the color about them. It took three days to sew all the strips together, but when it was finished they had a big bag of green silk more than twenty feet long.
Then Oz painted it on the inside with a coat of thin glue, to make it airtight, after which he announced that the balloon was ready.
"But we must have a basket to ride in," he said. So he sent the soldier with the green whiskers for a big clothes basket, which he fastened with many ropes to the bottom of the balloon.
When it was all ready, Oz sent word to his people that he was going to make a visit to a great brother Wizard who lived in the clouds. The news spread rapidly throughout the city and everyone came to see the wonderful sight.
Oz ordered the balloon carried out in front of the Palace, and the people gazed upon it with much curiosity. The Tin Woodman had chopped a big pile of wood, and now he made a fire of it, and Oz held the bottom of the balloon over the fire so that the hot air that arose from it would be caught in the silken bag. Gradually the balloon swelled out and rose into the air, until finally the basket just touched the ground.
Then Oz got into the basket and said to all the people in a loud voice:
"I am now going away to make a visit. While I am gone the Scarecrow will rule over you. I command you to obey him as you would me."
The balloon was by this time tugging hard at the rope that held it to the ground, for the air within it was hot, and this made it so much lighter in weight than the air without that it pulled hard to rise into the sky.
"Come, Dorothy!" cried the Wizard. "Hurry up, or the balloon will fly away."
"I can't find Toto anywhere," replied Dorothy, who did not wish to leave her little dog behind. Toto had run into the crowd to bark at a kitten, and Dorothy at last found him. She picked him up and ran towards the balloon.
She was within a few steps of it, and Oz was holding out his hands to help her into the basket, when, crack! went the ropes, and the balloon rose into the air without her.
"Come back!" she screamed. "I want to go, too!"
"I can't come back, my dear," called Oz from the basket. "Good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" shouted everyone, and all eyes were turned upward to where the Wizard was riding in the basket, rising every moment farther and farther into the sky.
And that was the last any of them ever saw of Oz, the Wonderful Wizard, though he may have reached Omaha safely, and be there now, for all we know. But the people remembered him lovingly, and said to one another:
"Oz was always our friend. When he was here he built for us this beautiful Emerald City, and now he is gone he has left the Wise Scarecrow to rule over us."
Still, for many days they grieved over the loss of the Wonderful Wizard, and would not be comforted.
Dorothy wept bitterly at the passing of her hope to get home to Kansas again; but when she thought it all over she was glad she had not gone up in a balloon. And she also felt sorry at losing Oz, and so did her companions.
The Tin Woodman came to her and said:
"Truly I should be ungrateful if I failed to mourn for the man who gave me my lovely heart.
"With pleasure," she answered, and brought a towel at once. Then the Tin Woodman wept for several minutes, and she watched the tears carefully and wiped them away with the towel. When he had finished, he thanked her kindly and oiled himself thoroughly with his jeweled oil-can, to guard against mishap.
The Scarecrow was now the ruler of the Emerald City, and although he was not a Wizard the people were proud of him. "For," they said, "there is not another city in all the world that is ruled by a stuffed man." And, so far as they knew, they were quite right.
The morning after the balloon had gone up with Oz, the four travelers met in the Throne Room and talked matters over. The Scarecrow sat in the big throne and the others stood respectfully before him.
"We are not so unlucky," said the new ruler, "for this Palace and the Emerald City belong to us, and we can do just as we please. When I remember that a short time ago I was up on a pole in a farmer's cornfield, and that now I am the ruler of this beautiful City, I am quite satisfied with my lot."
"I also," said the Tin Woodman, "am well-pleased with my new heart; and, really, that was the only thing I wished in all the world."
"For my part, I am content in knowing I am as brave as any beast that ever lived, if not braver," said the Lion modestly.
"If Dorothy would only be contented to live in the Emerald City," continued the Scarecrow, "we might all be happy together."
"But I don't want to live here," cried Dorothy. "I want to go to Kansas, and live with Aunt Em and Uncle Henry."
"Well, then, what can be done?" inquired the Woodman.
The Scarecrow decided to think, and he thought so hard that the pins and needles began to stick out of his brains. Finally he said:
"Why not call the Winged Monkeys, and ask them to carry you over the desert?"
"I never thought of that!" said Dorothy joyfully. "It's just the thing. I'll go at once for the Golden Cap."
When she brought it into the Throne Room she spoke the magic words, and soon the band of Winged Monkeys flew in through the open window and stood beside her.
"This is the second time you have called us," said the Monkey King, bowing before the little girl. "What do you wish?"
"I want you to fly with me to Kansas," said Dorothy.
But the Monkey King shook his head.
"That cannot be done," he said. "We belong to this country alone, and cannot leave it. There has never been a Winged Monkey in Kansas yet, and I suppose there never will be, for they don't belong there. We shall be glad to serve you in any way in our power, but we cannot cross the desert. Good-bye."
And with another bow, the Monkey King spread his wings and flew away through the window, followed by all his band.
Dorothy was ready to cry with disappointment. "I have wasted the charm of the Golden Cap to no purpose," she said, "for the Winged Monkeys cannot help me."
"It is certainly too bad!" said the tender-hearted Woodman.
The Scarecrow was thinking again, and his head bulged out so horribly that Dorothy feared it would burst.
"Let us call in the soldier with the green whiskers," he said, "and ask his advice."
So the soldier was summoned and entered the Throne Room timidly, for while Oz was alive he never was allowed to come farther than the door.
"This little girl," said the Scarecrow to the soldier, "wishes to cross the desert. How can she do so?"
"I cannot tell," answered the soldier, "for nobody has ever crossed the desert, unless it is Oz himself."
"Is there no one who can help me?" asked Dorothy earnestly.
"Glinda might," he suggested.
"Who is Glinda?" inquired the Scarecrow.
"The Witch of the South. She is the most powerful of all the Witches, and rules over the Quadlings. Besides, her castle stands on the edge of the desert, so she may know a way to cross it."
"Glinda is a Good Witch, isn't she?" asked the child.
"The Quadlings think she is good," said the soldier, "and she is kind to everyone. I have heard that Glinda is a beautiful woman, who knows how to keep young in spite of the many years she has lived."
"How can I get to her castle?" asked Dorothy.
"The road is straight to the South," he answered, "but it is said to be full of dangers to travelers. There are wild beasts in the woods, and a race of queer men who do not like strangers to cross their country. For this reason none of the Quadlings ever come to the Emerald City."
The soldier then left them and the Scarecrow said:
"It seems, in spite of dangers, that the best thing Dorothy can do is to travel to the Land of the South and ask Glinda to help her. For, of course, if Dorothy stays here she will never get back to Kansas."
"You must have been thinking again," remarked the Tin Woodman.
"I have," said the Scarecrow.
"I shall go with Dorothy," declared the Lion, "for I am tired of your city and long for the woods and the country again. I am really a wild beast, you know. Besides, Dorothy will need someone to protect her."
"That is true," agreed the Woodman. "My axe may be of service to her; so I also will go with her to the Land of the South."
"When shall we start?" asked the Scarecrow.
"Are you going?" they asked, in surprise.
"Certainly. If it wasn't for Dorothy I should never have had brains. She lifted me from the pole in the cornfield and brought me to the Emerald City. So my good luck is all due to her, and I shall never leave her until she starts back to Kansas for good and all."
"Thank you," said Dorothy gratefully. "You are all very kind to me. But I should like to start as soon as possible."
"We shall go tomorrow morning," returned the Scarecrow. "So now let us all get ready, for it will be a long journey."
The next morning Dorothy kissed the pretty green girl good-bye, and they all shook hands with the soldier with the green whiskers, who had walked with them as far as the gate. When the Guardian of the Gate saw them again he wondered greatly that they could leave the beautiful City to get into new trouble. But he at once unlocked their spectacles, which he put back into the green box, and gave them many good wishes to carry with them.
"You are now our ruler," he said to the Scarecrow; "so you must come back to us as soon as possible."
"I certainly shall if I am able," the Scarecrow replied; "but I must help Dorothy to get home, first."
As Dorothy bade the good-natured Guardian a last farewell she said:
"I have been very kindly treated in your lovely City, and everyone has been good to me. I cannot tell you how grateful I am."
"Don't try, my dear," he answered. "We should like to keep you with us, but if it is your wish to return to Kansas, I hope you will find a way." He then opened the gate of the outer wall, and they walked forth and started upon their journey.
The sun shone brightly as our friends turned their faces toward the Land of the South. They were all in the best of spirits, and laughed and chatted together. Dorothy was once more filled with the hope of getting home, and the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were glad to be of use to her. As for the Lion, he sniffed the fresh air with delight and whisked his tail from side to side in pure joy at being in the country again, while Toto ran around them and chased the moths and butterflies, barking merrily all the time.
"City life does not agree with me at all," remarked the Lion, as they walked along at a brisk pace. "I have lost much flesh since I lived there, and now I am anxious for a chance to show the other beasts how courageous I have grown."
They now turned and took a last look at the Emerald City. All they could see was a mass of towers and steeples behind the green walls, and high up above everything the spires and dome of the Palace of Oz.
"Oz was not such a bad Wizard, after all," said the Tin Woodman, as he felt his heart rattling around in his breast.
"He knew how to give me brains, and very good brains, too," said the Scarecrow.
"If Oz had taken a dose of the same courage he gave me," added the Lion, "he would have been a brave man."
Dorothy said nothing. Oz had not kept the promise he made her, but he had done his best, so she forgave him. As he said, he was a good man, even if he was a bad Wizard.
The first day's journey was through the green fields and bright flowers that stretched about the Emerald City on every side. They slept that night on the grass, with nothing but the stars over them; and they rested very well indeed.
In the morning they traveled on until they came to a thick wood. There was no way of going around it, for it seemed to extend to the right and left as far as they could see; and, besides, they did not dare change the direction of their journey for fear of getting lost. So they looked for the place where it would be easiest to get into the forest.
The Scarecrow, who was in the lead, finally discovered a big tree with such wide-spreading branches that there was room for the party to pass underneath. So he walked forward to the tree, but just as he came under the first branches they bent down and twined around him, and the next minute he was raised from the ground and flung headlong among his fellow travelers.
This did not hurt the Scarecrow, but it surprised him, and he looked rather dizzy when Dorothy picked him up.
"Here is another space between the trees," called the Lion.
"Let me try it first," said the Scarecrow, "for it doesn't hurt me to get thrown about." He walked up to another tree, as he spoke, but its branches immediately seized him and tossed him back again.
"This is strange," exclaimed Dorothy. "What shall we do?"
"The trees seem to have made up their minds to fight us, and stop our journey," remarked the Lion.
"I believe I will try it myself," said the Woodman, and shouldering his axe, he marched up to the first tree that had handled the Scarecrow so roughly. When a big branch bent down to seize him the Woodman chopped at it so fiercely that he cut it in two. At once the tree began shaking all its branches as if in pain, and the Tin Woodman passed safely under it.
"Come on!" he shouted to the others. "Be quick!" They all ran forward and passed under the tree without injury, except Toto, who was caught by a small branch and shaken until he howled. But the Woodman promptly chopped off the branch and set the little dog free.
The other trees of the forest did nothing to keep them back, so they made up their minds that only the first row of trees could bend down their branches, and that probably these were the policemen of the forest, and given this wonderful power in order to keep strangers out of it.
The four travelers walked with ease through the trees until they came to the farther edge of the wood. Then, to their surprise, they found before them a high wall which seemed to be made of white china. It was smooth, like the surface of a dish, and higher than their heads.
"What shall we do now?" asked Dorothy.
"I will make a ladder," said the Tin Woodman, "for we certainly must climb over the wall."
While the Woodman was making a ladder from wood which he found in the forest Dorothy lay down and slept, for she was tired by the long walk. The Lion also curled himself up to sleep and Toto lay beside him.
The Scarecrow watched the Woodman while he worked, and said to him:
"I cannot think why this wall is here, nor what it is made of."
"Rest your brains and do not worry about the wall," replied the Woodman. "When we have climbed over it, we shall know what is on the other side."
After a time the ladder was finished. It looked clumsy, but the Tin Woodman was sure it was strong and would answer their purpose. The Scarecrow waked Dorothy and the Lion and Toto, and told them that the ladder was ready. The Scarecrow climbed up the ladder first, but he was so awkward that Dorothy had to follow close behind and keep him from falling off. When he got his head over the top of the wall the Scarecrow said, "Oh, my!"
"Go on," exclaimed Dorothy.
So the Scarecrow climbed farther up and sat down on the top of the wall, and Dorothy put her head over and cried, "Oh, my!" just as the Scarecrow had done.
Then Toto came up, and immediately began to bark, but Dorothy made him be still.
The Lion climbed the ladder next, and the Tin Woodman came last; but both of them cried, "Oh, my!" as soon as they looked over the wall. When they were all sitting in a row on the top of the wall, they looked down and saw a strange sight.
Before them was a great stretch of country having a floor as smooth and shining and white as the bottom of a big platter. Scattered around were many houses made entirely of china and painted in the brightest colors. These houses were quite small, the biggest of them reaching only as high as Dorothy's waist. There were also pretty little barns, with china fences around them; and many cows and sheep and horses and pigs and chickens, all made of china, were standing about in groups.
But the strangest of all were the people who lived in this queer country. There were milkmaids and shepherdesses, with brightly colored bodices and golden spots all over their gowns; and princesses with most gorgeous frocks of silver and gold and purple; and shepherds dressed in knee breeches with pink and yellow and blue stripes down them, and golden buckles on their shoes; and princes with jeweled crowns upon their heads, wearing ermine robes and satin doublets; and funny clowns in ruffled gowns, with round red spots upon their cheeks and tall, pointed caps. And, strangest of all, these people were all made of china, even to their clothes, and were so small that the tallest of them was no higher than Dorothy's knee.
No one did so much as look at the travelers at first, except one little purple china dog with an extra-large head, which came to the wall and barked at them in a tiny voice, afterwards running away again.
"How shall we get down?" asked Dorothy.
They found the ladder so heavy they could not pull it up, so the Scarecrow fell off the wall and the others jumped down upon him so that the hard floor would not hurt their feet. Of course they took pains not to light on his head and get the pins in their feet. When all were safely down they picked up the Scarecrow, whose body was quite flattened out, and patted his straw into shape again.
"We must cross this strange place in order to get to the other side," said Dorothy, "for it would be unwise for us to go any other way except due South."
They began walking through the country of the china people, and the first thing they came to was a china milkmaid milking a china cow. As they drew near, the cow suddenly gave a kick and kicked over the stool, the pail, and even the milkmaid herself, and all fell on the china ground with a great clatter.
Dorothy was shocked to see that the cow had broken her leg off, and that the pail was lying in several small pieces, while the poor milkmaid had a nick in her left elbow.
"There!" cried the milkmaid angrily. "See what you have done! My cow has broken her leg, and I must take her to the mender's shop and have it glued on again. What do you mean by coming here and frightening my cow?"
"I'm very sorry," returned Dorothy. "Please forgive us."
But the pretty milkmaid was much too vexed to make any answer. She picked up the leg sulkily and led her cow away, the poor animal limping on three legs. As she left them the milkmaid cast many reproachful glances over her shoulder at the clumsy strangers, holding her nicked elbow close to her side.
Dorothy was quite grieved at this mishap.
"We must be very careful here," said the kind-hearted Woodman, "or we may hurt these pretty little people so they will never get over it."
A little farther on Dorothy met a most beautifully dressed young Princess, who stopped short as she saw the strangers and started to run away.
Dorothy wanted to see more of the Princess, so she ran after her. But the china girl cried out:
"Don't chase me! Don't chase me!"

"Because," answered the Princess, also stopping, a safe distance away, "if I run I may fall down and break myself."
"But could you not be mended?" asked the girl.
"Oh, yes; but one is never so pretty after being mended, you know," replied the Princess.
"I suppose not," said Dorothy.
"Now there is Mr. Joker, one of our clowns," continued the china lady, "who is always trying to stand upon his head. He has broken himself so often that he is mended in a hundred places, and doesn't look at all pretty. Here he comes now, so you can see for yourself."
Indeed, a jolly little clown came walking toward them, and Dorothy could see that in spite of his pretty clothes of red and yellow and green he was completely covered with cracks, running every which way and showing plainly that he had been mended in many places.

You're quite as stiff
And prim as if
You'd eaten up a poker!"
"Be quiet, sir!" said the Princess. "Can't you see these are strangers, and should be treated with respect?"
"Well, that's respect, I expect," declared the Clown, and immediately stood upon his head.
"Don't mind Mr. Joker," said the Princess to Dorothy. "He is considerably cracked in his head, and that makes him foolish."
"Oh, I don't mind him a bit," said Dorothy. "But you are so beautiful," she continued, "that I am sure I could love you dearly.  I could carry you in my basket."
"That would make me very unhappy," answered the china Princess. "You see, here in our country we live contentedly, and can talk and move around as we please. But whenever any of us are taken away our joints at once stiffen, and we can only stand straight and look pretty. Of course that is all that is expected of us when we are on mantels and cabinets and drawing-room tables, but our lives are much pleasanter here in our own country."
"I would not make you unhappy for all the world!" exclaimed Dorothy. "So I'll just say good-bye."
"Good-bye," replied the Princess.
They walked carefully through the china country. The little animals and all the people scampered out of their way, fearing the strangers would break them, and after an hour or so the travelers reached the other side of the country and came to another china wall.
It was not so high as the first, however, and by standing upon the Lion's back they all managed to scramble to the top. Then the Lion gathered his legs under him and jumped on the wall; but just as he jumped, he upset a china church with his tail and smashed it all to pieces.
"That was too bad," said Dorothy, "but really I think we were lucky in not doing these little people more harm than breaking a cow's leg and a church. They are all so brittle!"
"They are, indeed," said the Scarecrow, "and I am thankful I am made of straw and cannot be easily damaged. There are worse things in the world than being a Scarecrow."
After climbing down from the china wall the travelers found themselves in a disagreeable country, full of bogs and marshes and covered with tall, rank grass. It was difficult to walk without falling into muddy holes, for the grass was so thick that it hid them from sight. However, by carefully picking their way, they got safely along until they reached solid ground. But here the country seemed wilder than ever, and after a long and tiresome walk through the underbrush they entered another forest, where the trees were bigger and older than any they had ever seen.
"This forest is perfectly delightful," declared the Lion, looking around him with joy. "Never have I seen a more beautiful place."
"It seems gloomy," said the Scarecrow.
"Not a bit of it," answered the Lion. "I should like to live here all my life. See how soft the dried leaves are under your feet and how rich and green the moss is that clings to these old trees. Surely no wild beast could wish a pleasanter home."
"Perhaps there are wild beasts in the forest now," said Dorothy.
"I suppose there are," returned the Lion, "but I do not see any of them about."
They walked through the forest until it became too dark to go any farther. Dorothy and Toto and the Lion lay down to sleep, while the Woodman and the Scarecrow kept watch over them as usual.
When morning came, they started again. Before they had gone far they heard a low rumble, as of the growling of many wild animals. Toto whimpered a little, but none of the others was frightened, and they kept along the well-trodden path until they came to an opening in the wood, in which were gathered hundreds of beasts of every variety. There were tigers and elephants and bears and wolves and foxes and all the others in the natural history, and for a moment Dorothy was afraid. But the Lion explained that the animals were holding a meeting, and he judged by their snarling and growling that they were in great trouble.
As he spoke several of the beasts caught sight of him, and at once the great assemblage hushed as if by magic. The biggest of the tigers came up to the Lion and bowed, saying:
"Welcome, O King of Beasts! You have come in good time to fight our enemy and bring peace to all the animals of the forest once more."
"What is your trouble?" asked the Lion quietly.
"We are all threatened," answered the tiger, "by a fierce enemy which has lately come into this forest. It is a most tremendous monster, like a great spider, with a body as big as an elephant and legs as long as a tree trunk. It has eight of these long legs, and as the monster crawls through the forest he seizes an animal with a leg and drags it to his mouth, where he eats it as a spider does a fly. Not one of us is safe while this fierce creature is alive, and we had called a meeting to decide how to take care of ourselves when you came among us."
The Lion thought for a moment.
"Are there any other lions in this forest?" he asked.
"No; there were some, but the monster has eaten them all. And, besides, there were none of them nearly so large and brave as you."
"If I put an end to your enemy, will you bow down to me and obey me as King of the Forest?" inquired the Lion.
"We will do that gladly," returned the tiger; and all the other beasts roared with a mighty roar: "We will!"
"Where is this great spider of yours now?" asked the Lion.
"Yonder, among the oak trees," said the tiger, pointing with his forefoot.
"Take good care of these friends of mine," said the Lion, "and I will go at once to fight the monster."
He bade his comrades good-bye and marched proudly away to do battle with the enemy.
 Its legs were quite as long as the tiger had said, and its body covered with coarse black hair. It had a great mouth, with a row of sharp teeth a foot long; but its head was joined to the pudgy body by a neck as slender as a wasp's waist. This gave the Lion a hint of the best way to attack the creature, and as he knew it was easier to fight it asleep than awake, he gave a great spring and landed directly upon the monster's back. Then, with one blow of his heavy paw, all armed with sharp claws, he knocked the spider's head from its body. Jumping down, he watched it until the long legs stopped wiggling, when he knew it was quite dead.
The Lion went back to the opening where the beasts of the forest were waiting for him and said proudly:
"You need fear your enemy no longer."
Then the beasts bowed down to the Lion as their King, and he promised to come back and rule over them as soon as Dorothy was safely on her way to Kansas.
The four travelers passed through the rest of the forest in safety, and when they came out from its gloom saw before them a steep hill, covered from top to bottom with great pieces of rock.
"That will be a hard climb," said the Scarecrow, "but we must get over the hill, nevertheless."
So he led the way and the others followed. They had nearly reached the first rock when they heard a rough voice cry out, "Keep back!"
"Who are you?" asked the Scarecrow.
Then a head showed itself over the rock and the same voice said, "This hill belongs to us, and we don't allow anyone to cross it."
"But we must cross it," said the Scarecrow. "We're going to the country of the Quadlings."
"But you shall not!" replied the voice, and there stepped from behind the rock the strangest man the travelers had ever seen.
 But he had no arms at all, and, seeing this, the Scarecrow did not fear that so helpless a creature could prevent them from climbing the hill. So he said, "I'm sorry not to do as you wish, but we must pass over your hill whether you like it or not," and he walked boldly forward.
As quick as lightning the man's head shot forward and his neck stretched out until the top of the head, where it was flat, struck the Scarecrow in the middle and sent him tumbling, over and over, down the hill. Almost as quickly as it came the head went back to the body, and the man laughed harshly as he said, "It isn't as easy as you think!"
A chorus of boisterous laughter came from the other rocks, and Dorothy saw hundreds of the armless Hammer-Heads upon the hillside, one behind every rock.
The Lion became quite angry at the laughter caused by the Scarecrow's mishap, and giving a loud roar that echoed like thunder, he dashed up the hill.

Dorothy ran down and helped the Scarecrow to his feet, and the Lion came up to her, feeling rather bruised and sore, and said, "It is useless to fight people with shooting heads; no one can withstand them."
"What can we do, then?" she asked.
"Call the Winged Monkeys," suggested the Tin Woodman. "You have still the right to command them once more."
"Very well," she answered, and putting on the Golden Cap she uttered the magic words. The Monkeys were as prompt as ever, and in a few moments the entire band stood before her.
"What are your commands?" inquired the King of the Monkeys, bowing low.
"Carry us over the hill to the country of the Quadlings," answered the girl.
"It shall be done," said the King, and at once the Winged Monkeys caught the four travelers and Toto up in their arms and flew away with them. As they passed over the hill the Hammer-Heads yelled with vexation, and shot their heads high in the air, but they could not reach the Winged Monkeys, which carried Dorothy and her comrades safely over the hill and set them down in the beautiful country of the Quadlings.
"This is the last time you can summon us," said the leader to Dorothy; "so good-bye and good luck to you."
"Good-bye, and thank you very much," returned the girl; and the Monkeys rose into the air and were out of sight in a twinkling.
The country of the Quadlings seemed rich and happy. There was field upon field of ripening grain, with well-paved roads running between, and pretty rippling brooks with strong bridges across them. The fences and houses and bridges were all painted bright red, just as they had been painted yellow in the country of the Winkies and blue in the country of the Munchkins. The Quadlings themselves, who were short and fat and looked chubby and good-natured, were dressed all in red, which showed bright against the green grass and the yellowing grain.
The Monkeys had set them down near a farmhouse, and the four travelers walked up to it and knocked at the door. It was opened by the farmer's wife, and when Dorothy asked for something to eat the woman gave them all a good dinner, with three kinds of cake and four kinds of cookies, and a bowl of milk for Toto.
"How far is it to the Castle of Glinda?" asked the child.
"It is not a great way," answered the farmer's wife. "Take the road to the South and you will soon reach it."
Thanking the good woman, they started afresh and walked by the fields and across the pretty bridges until they saw before them a very beautiful Castle. Before the gates were three young girls, dressed in handsome red uniforms trimmed with gold braid; and as Dorothy approached, one of them said to her:
"Why have you come to the South Country?"
"To see the Good Witch who rules here," she answered. "Will you take me to her?"
"Let me have your name, and I will ask Glinda if she will receive you." They told who they were, and the girl soldier went into the Castle. After a few moments she came back to say that Dorothy and the others were to be admitted at once.
Before they went to see Glinda, however, they were taken to a room of the Castle, where Dorothy washed her face and combed her hair, and the Lion shook the dust out of his mane, and the Scarecrow patted himself into his best shape, and the Woodman polished his tin and oiled his joints.
When they were all quite presentable they followed the soldier girl into a big room where the Witch Glinda sat upon a throne of rubies.
She was both beautiful and young to their eyes. Her hair was a rich red in color and fell in flowing ringlets over her shoulders.
"What can I do for you, my child?" she asked.
Dorothy told the Witch all her story: how the cyclone had brought her to the Land of Oz, how she had found her companions, and of the wonderful adventures they had met with.
"My greatest wish now," she added, "is to get back to Kansas, for Aunt Em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that will make her put on mourning; and unless the crops are better this year than they were last, I am sure Uncle Henry cannot afford it."
Glinda leaned forward and kissed the sweet, upturned face of the loving little girl.
"Bless your dear heart," she said, "I am sure I can tell you of a way to get back to Kansas." Then she added, "But, if I do, you must give me the Golden Cap."
"Willingly!" exclaimed Dorothy; "indeed, it is of no use to me now, and when you have it you can command the Winged Monkeys three times."
"And I think I shall need their service just those three times," answered Glinda, smiling.
Dorothy then gave her the Golden Cap, and the Witch said to the Scarecrow, "What will you do when Dorothy has left us?"
"I will return to the Emerald City," he replied, "for Oz has made me its ruler and the people like me. The only thing that worries me is how to cross the hill of the Hammer-Heads."
"By means of the Golden Cap I shall command the Winged Monkeys to carry you to the gates of the Emerald City," said Glinda, "for it would be a shame to deprive the people of so wonderful a ruler."
"Am I really wonderful?" asked the Scarecrow.
"You are unusual," replied Glinda.
Turning to the Tin Woodman, she asked, "What will become of you when Dorothy leaves this country?"
He leaned on his axe and thought a moment. Then he said, "The Winkies were very kind to me, and wanted me to rule over them after the Wicked Witch died. I am fond of the Winkies, and if I could get back again to the Country of the West, I should like nothing better than to rule over them forever."
"My second command to the Winged Monkeys," said Glinda "will be that they carry you safely to the land of the Winkies. Your brain may not be so large to look at as those of the Scarecrow, but you are really brighter than he is—when you are well polished—and I am sure you will rule the Winkies wisely and well."
Then the Witch looked at the big, shaggy Lion and asked, "When Dorothy has returned to her own home, what will become of you?"
"Over the hill of the Hammer-Heads," he answered, "lies a grand old forest, and all the beasts that live there have made me their King. If I could only get back to this forest, I would pass my life very happily there."
"My third command to the Winged Monkeys," said Glinda, "shall be to carry you to your forest. Then, having used up the powers of the Golden Cap, I shall give it to the King of the Monkeys, that he and his band may thereafter be free for evermore."
The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Lion now thanked the Good Witch earnestly for her kindness; and Dorothy exclaimed:
"You are certainly as good as you are beautiful! But you have not yet told me how to get back to Kansas."
"Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert," replied Glinda. "If you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the very first day you came to this country."
"But then I should not have had my wonderful brains!" cried the Scarecrow. "I might have passed my whole life in the farmer's cornfield."
"And I should not have had my lovely heart," said the Tin Woodman. "I might have stood and rusted in the forest till the end of the world."
"And I should have lived a coward forever," declared the Lion, "and no beast in all the forest would have had a good word to say to me."
"This is all true," said Dorothy, "and I am glad I was of use to these good friends. But now that each of them has had what he most desired, and each is happy in having a kingdom to rule besides, I think I should like to go back to Kansas."
"The Silver Shoes," said the Good Witch, "have wonderful powers. And one of the most curious things about them is that they can carry you to any place in the world in three steps, and each step will be made in the wink of an eye. All you have to do is to knock the heels together three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go."
"If that is so," said the child joyfully, "I will ask them to carry me back to Kansas at once."
 Then she kissed the Tin Woodman, who was weeping in a way most dangerous to his joints. But she hugged the soft, stuffed body of the Scarecrow in her arms instead of kissing his painted face, and found she was crying herself at this sorrowful parting from her loving comrades.
Glinda the Good stepped down from her ruby throne to give the little girl a good-bye kiss, and Dorothy thanked her for all the kindness she had shown to her friends and herself.
Dorothy now took Toto up solemnly in her arms, and having said one last good-bye she clapped the heels of her shoes together three times, saying:
"Take me home to Aunt Em!"
Instantly she was whirling through the air, so swiftly that all she could see or feel was the wind whistling past her ears.
The Silver Shoes took but three steps, and then she stopped so suddenly that she rolled over upon the grass several times before she knew where she was.
At length, however, she sat up and looked about her.
"Good gracious!" she cried.
For she was sitting on the broad Kansas prairie, and just before her was the new farmhouse Uncle Henry built after the cyclone had carried away the old one. Uncle Henry was milking the cows in the barnyard, and Toto had jumped out of her arms and was running toward the barn, barking furiously.
Dorothy stood up and found she was in her stocking-feet. For the Silver Shoes had fallen off in her flight through the air, and were lost forever in the desert.
Aunt Em had just come out of the house to water the cabbages when she looked up and saw Dorothy running toward her.
"My darling child!"  "Where in the world did you come from?"
"From the Land of Oz," said Dorothy gravely. "And here is Toto, too. And oh, Aunt Em! I'm so glad to be at home again!"
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz


Paper: arXiv
Authors: Daisy Stanton, Matt Shannon, Soroosh Mariooryad, RJ Skerry-Ryan, Eric Battenberg, Tom Bagby, and David Kao
Abstract: This work explores the task of synthesizing speech in non-existent human-sounding voices. We call this task "speaker generation", and present TacoSpawn, a system that performs competitively at this task. TacoSpawn is a recurrent attention-based text-to-speech model that learns a distribution over a speaker embedding space, which enables sampling of novel and diverse speakers. Our method is easy to implement, and does not require transfer learning from speaker ID systems. We present objective and subjective metrics for evaluating performance on this task, and demonstrate that our proposed objective metrics correlate with human perception of speaker similarity.
This page contains a set of audio samples in support of the paper: we suggest that readers listen to the samples in conjunction with reading the paper.
Note that the TacoSpawn systems described in the paper extend a baseline Tacotron -- that is, they do not use any additional acoustic or prosody embeddings to improve the naturalness of synthesized speech.
Click here for more from the Tacotron team.
Contents
The audio clips below show examples of generated speakers. These were synthesized by a TacoSpawn system trained on the 1468-speaker English dataset described in our paper.
|
Here we provide examples to accompany the "Speaker Distance" section of our paper. Speaker distance is measured using using cosine similarity in d-vector space, and the audio clips below show "closest" and "furthest away" speakers from a given generated or training set speaker. Samples are from a TacoSpawn model trained on the 1100-speaker US English dataset described in our paper.
The table below shows a generated TacoSpawn speaker in the left-hand column, followed by "closest" and "furthest away" speaker samples of the same gender.
From left to right, the columns mean:
|
The table below shows a ground-truth utterance from a training set speaker in the left-hand column, followed by "closest" and "furthest away" speaker samples of the same gender.
From left to right, the columns mean:
|
The interactive t-SNE plot below shows speakers represented in d-vector space, colored by region. Each audio sample is from either a generated ("gen") or training set speaker ("synth"), synthesized by a TacoSpawn system trained on the 1468-speaker English dataset described in our paper. The two t-SNE clusters show natural separation of speakers by gender.


This directory is a brief example of a React app with Serverless Functions that can be deployed with Vercel and zero configuration.
Deploy your own React project, along with Serverless Functions, with Vercel.
Live Example: https://create-react-app.now-examples.now.sh/
To get started with React, along with Serverless Functions, with Vercel, you can use the Create-React-App CLI to initialize the project:
$ npx create-react-app my-app
You can deploy your new React project, along with Serverless Functions, with a single command from your terminal using Vercel CLI:
$ vercel


Charlie The Cool Cat's Homepage
Hi! My name is Charlie and my favorite things are:
- Lasers
- Catnip
- Windowsills
- Birds
I have a home that I love very much. Here's a picture of it!
I have a family that takes care of me. They are:
- Lydia
- Gives the best belly rubs
- Always forgives me when I scratch the couch
- Gary
- Smells like bacon (I love bacon)
- Doesn't pet me enough :(
- Junior
- Pulls on my tail
- Screams a lot, but it's kinda funny??
Please send me toys. My address is 123 Woodsy Way, Portland, OR.
Thank you for visiting my website!


WINGS OF DESIRE (1987) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge
Director: Wim Wenders Writers: Peter Handke and Wim Wenders Starring: Bruno Ganz, Otto Sander, Solveig Dommartin, Peter Falk
Here's the most beautifully lyric, most poignant, and downright sensual film you will probably ever see about the phenomenon known as angels. That's because this is not a glorification of what they are, it's a film that tries to make it feel like you're one of the two angels in this film. It understands that they are the spirits God chose to watch over earth because no one else could witness it. It knows that perhaps children can see them, but adults have lost the abitlity to. And it knows that they try and console those they see in desperation and sadness, but that they cannot directly affect their lives.
The two angels of the film are named Damiel and Cassiel (Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander), and they are the angels who look after Berlin, back when it was divided by the Berlin Wall. They have been there ever since the days before of Hitler, have witnessed all of World War II, and have seen everything they possibly can see. The first hour and a half are a slow-moving, totally hypnotic trip around Berlin as we see each of them watching people, listening to their inner thoughts like they were stations on the radio, and sometimes staying to see people in need of some help, to which all they can give is a helping hand.
Somewhere in the beginning, Damiel wanders into a carnival, and soon falls in love with an acrobat there, Marion (Solveig Dommartin), who is depressed because the carnival is closing, and she will have to give up the job she loves and take up a waitressing job. It's easy to understand why Damiel loves her: she has deep, sad feelings, something which the angels are not able to really have, except for the giant yearning that Damiel soon has to "take the plunge," as he puts it, and become human so that he can live as the people he has been watching for so long.
Sound familiar? Well, it should because it was recently remade here in America as "City of Angels," with Nicolas Cage as the lead angel, and Meg Ryan as the woman (a heart surgeon in the movie - get it?). Yes, I missed the film (on purpose), but as it looked, that was too obsessed with the love story, which is fine, it's just not "Wings of Desire." This film is not one that would be as successful as "City of Angels" was. It moves slowly, and has no plot and really nowhere to go for most of its running time. It's obsessed with creating the feeling of being either Damiel and Cassiel, not being able to see things the way humans do, and only being able to act as a voyeur, even when they're right in front of the people they're viewing.
"Wings of Desire" is one of the most delicately structured films I have ever seen in my life. It's filled with a heavy amount of sadness and almost jealousy, but it's light as a feather. There is no real feeling of time, and it has no real place to go, just like the angels who inhabit the movie. At around the hour and a half spot, when Damiel becomes human, and the black and white cinematography suddenly shifts to color to show the world of humans (the film shifts a bit every now and then, depending on what the perspective is), the film suddenly has somewhere to go, and the scenes that take place are often more crucial to the "plot" than to the overall feeling. Suddenly, Damiel has the chance to win the heart of Marion, and he better damn well do it!
There's another character in "Wings of Desire" played by American actor Peter Falk, who's playing himself (literally) making a movie over in Berlin. We learn about half way through the film that he cannot really see Damiel, but that he knows he's there, and when he suddenly begins talking to him, Damiel is so moved that he finds he needs to become human right away (and he does). Although he's only in it intermittently, he's a very crucial figure in the film for two reasons: a) he brings up the prospect that many other angels have done what Damiel ends up doing, and b) he's an opposite to the angels: he's the one everyone in the world wants to watch while Damiel and Cassiel are the ones that want to be watched.
What's the film's overall message? There really isn't one, which is actually better. Like "2001: A Space Odyssey," this is a film that doesn't necessarily want to limit itself to one singular definition, but wants to be philosophical while still becoming hypnotic. So many films make the mistake of trying to be too philosophical and forgetting that it's a film and it needs to become an experience. Here's a film that doesn't answer all the questions it brings up, and doesn't even bring up all the questions it could. But for two hours, I guarantee that you will be glued to your television set, and afterwards you can debate the concepts that it touches on.
MY RATING (out of 4): ****
Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
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Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews


Narayana Gowda to file nomination on Nov. 18
by Special CorrespondentDisqualified MLA K.C. Narayana Gowda, BJP nominee for K.R. Pet Assembly segment, on Friday said that he would file the nomination to contest the forthcoming byelections on November 18.
The Mumbai-based businessman-turned-politician, who joined BJP in the presence of Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa, party president Nalin Kumar Katil and others, visited K.R. Pet on Friday. The former JD(S) leader was accorded a rousing welcome.
Speaking to presspersons, Mr. Gowda said that a host of BJP leaders, mainly Deputy CM and Minister for Higher Education C.N. Ashwath Narayan, Law Minister J.C. Madhuswamy, Revenue Minister R. Ashok, Hassan MLA Preetham Gowda, and others would be present for the filing.


| bg_process {xfun} | R Documentation |
Start a background process using the PowerShell cmdlet Start-Process
-PassThru
on Windows or the ampersand &
on Unix, and return the
process ID.
bg_process( command, args = character(), verbose = getOption("xfun.bg_process.verbose", FALSE) )
command, args |
The system command and its arguments. They do not need to
be quoted, since they will be quoted via |
verbose |
If |
The process ID as a character string.
On Windows, if PowerShell is not available, try to use
system2(wait = FALSE)
to start the background process
instead. The process ID will be identified from the output of the command
tasklist
. This method of looking for the process ID may not be
reliable. If the search is not successful in 30 seconds, it will throw an
error (timeout). If a longer time is needed, you may set
options(xfun.bg_process.timeout)
to a larger value, but it should be
very rare that a process cannot be started in 30 seconds. When you reach
the timeout, it is more likely that the command actually failed.
proc_kill()
to kill a process.


--- layout: post title: 'Digital Overload: Your Brain On Gadgets : NPR' categories: [] tags: - family - geek - meda - technology status: publish type: post published: true meta: _original_post_id: '' _original_import_author: John Duprey author: ---
Just as food nourishes us and we need it for life, so too ??? in the 21st century and the modern age ??? we need technology. You cannot survive without the communication tools; the productivity tools are essential," he says. "And yet, food has pros and cons to it. We know that some food is Twinkies and some food is Brussels sprouts. And we know that if we overeat, it causes problems. Similarly, after 20 years of glorifying technology as if all computers were good and all use of it was good, science is beginning to embrace the idea that some technology is Twinkies and some technology is Brussels sprouts.
We definitely try to limit our child's "media consumption" but it is difficult in this age, especially when all her friends seem to have unfettered access to it. Its also difficult because my wife and I are both heavy media/computer users. And yes, I have already started attempts at teaching our five year old to write code. Like the article summarizes, we don't believe all media is bad and try to set reasonable daily portions for all of us.


When exploring a new dataset you want to be able to visualise the dataset for patterns (usually with something like ggplot2). This usually starts by selecting two variables that seem reasonable to plot against eachother and then iterating over possible visualisations until you find a pattern.
Unfortunately, this is a very time consuming process. Instead of doing all this work manually, why not just plot all variables against eachother to get a glimpse of the data?
Enter GGally
Let's do a quick hello world.
library(GGally)
library(dplyr)
ChickWeight %>%
select(Time, weight) %>%
ggpairs
The ggpairs function takes a dataframe (in this case we first reduce the dataframe to only have two columns) and makes plots between all variables. On the diagonal it lists a histogram each variable.
Discrete Values
Note that all plotted variables were continous variables, if we add a discrete variable it will automatically detect and adjust it's plotting.
ChickWeight %>%
select(Time, weight, Diet) %>%
ggpairs
If this variable is of special interest, we can assign a color to it across all subplots.
ChickWeight %>%
select(Time, weight, Diet) %>%
ggpairs(colour = "Diet")
You might notice that we are plotting a lot of charts and that this might take a lot of time. If we want to prevent this we can choose to only plot the lower triangle half.
ChickWeight %>%
select(Time, weight, Diet) %>%
ggpairs(colour = "Diet",
upper="blank")
Extra settings
There are three different situations for ggally when it is considering making a subplot between two variables:
- continous variable x continous variable
- continous variable x discrete variable
- discrete variable x discrete variable
If we now take a different dataset with all these different crossplots we will see what the function will do for each of these situations.
mtcars %>%
mutate(cyl = as.factor(cyl), am = as.factor(am)) %>%
select(hp, wt, cyl, am) %>%
ggpairs(title = "a matrix of characteristics")
Notice that I've purposefully casted the cyl and am variables for this purpose.
The upper and lower settings can adapt for different combinations of values. The following settings are available according to the documentation:
- continuous : "points", "smooth", "density", "cor", "blank"
- combo : "box", "dot", "facethist", "facetdensity", "denstrip", "blank"
- discrete: "facetbar", "ratio", "blank"
mtcars %>%
mutate(cyl = as.factor(cyl)) %>%
select(mpg, disp, hp, wt, cyl) %>%
ggpairs(title = "a matrix of characteristics",
upper = list(continuous = "density", combo = "box"),
lower = list(continuous = "smooth"),
color = "cyl")
That's a lot of exploratory plotting for just one command.
Conclusion
All in all ggally feels like a huge timesaver, albeit a bit slow. You can always prevent the long plotting time by either reducing the number of plots you are drawing or by selecting only a sample of your data (via sample_n for example).


@natashaf
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Overview - Today
@natashaf
1987 Followers
12 Today
@natashaf
1044 Followers
99 Today
@realnatashaf
11k Followers
1099 Today
Natasha F.
8239 Subscribers
144 Today


http://<your ramadda>/phone/twilio/sms http://<your ramadda>/phone/twilio/voice e.g.: http://ramadda.org/repository/phone/twilio/sms http://ramadda.org/repository/phone/twilio/voiceYou then need to define the following properties on your RAMADDA server (e.g., in a phone.properties file in your RAMADDA home directory)
#Twilio Application SID twilio.accountsid= #Twili authorization token (for reading the transcription) twilio.authtoken= #If you have a paid twilio account set this to true to transcribe voice #twilio.transcribe=true or falseThis is the application SID and the authorization token you can get from your Twilio account dashboard.
The From Phone and To Phone are optional. If defined, this harvester will only access calls from/to these numbers.
There are 3 access levels specified by (potentially) different passwords - View, Add and Edit. If you enter "any" for these passwords then no password is required for that action.
To enable receiving voice messages specify a Voice Message response.


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--- layout: archive title: Zulip Chat Archive permalink: /stream/113489-new-members/topic/Splitting.20multiple.20conjunctions.20in.20one.20go.html ---
Suppose I have a hypothesis of the form h : P₁ ∧ P₂ ∧ ... ∧ Pn
. Currently, I find myself doing:
cases h with hP₁ h, cases h with hP₂ h, ... cases h with hPn_1 hPn,
which is rather tedious. Is there a way to split all those conjunctions in one go? (Same for hypotheses of the form ∃ x₁ x₂ ... xn, P
)
Yep, rcases:
rcases h with ⟨hP_1, hP_2, ..., hPn⟩
Thanks, that made my proof script much cleaner
{% endraw %}Last updated: Apr 24 2020 at 19:02 UTC


What is pair programming?
Pair programming is a software development technique in which two programmers work together at one work station. One (driver) writes code while the other (navigator) reviews each line of code as it is typed. The two programmers should switch roles frequently.
Why is pair programming important to DBC?
Pair programming in DBC is very beneficial as it helps with learning new material.
Compare driver and navigator
Driver types code while the navigator observes, makes suggestions, find errors, and corrects syntax, while taking an overview perspective.
Reflection
Peer Paring is a good opportunity to meet new people, learn from each other, build relationships, and to stay on-track :).


| Tag | Name | Req'd | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 311 | UnderlyingSymbol | N | Underlying security's Symbol. See Symbol (55) field for description |
| UndSecAltIDGrp | N | ||
| 457 | NoUnderlyingSecurityAltID | N | |
| 458 | UnderlyingSecurityAltID | N | Alternate Security identifier value for this underlying security of UnderlyingSecurityAltIDSource (459) type (e.g. CUSIP, SEDOL, ISIN, etc). Requires UnderlyingSecurityAltIDSource. |