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to attend the theater afterward and sit in the royal box. To-morrow morning,
if you really insist upon it, you may resume your journey."
They consented to this, and some of the fox-servants led them to a suite of
lovely rooms in the big palace.
Button-Bright was afraid to be left alone, so Dorothy took him into her own
room. While a maid-fox dressed the little girl's hair--which was a bit tangled--
and put some bright, fresh ribbons in it, another maid-fox combed the hair on
poor Button-Bright's face and head and brushed it carefully, tying a pink bow
to each of his pointed ears. The maids wanted to dress the children in fine
costumes of woven feathers, such as all the foxes wore; but neither of them
consented to that.
"
"
A sailor suit and a fox head do not go well together," said one of the maids,
for no fox was ever a sailor that I can remember."
"
I'm not a fox!" cried Button-Bright.
"
Alas, no," agreed the maid. "But you've got a lovely fox head on your skinny
shoulders, and that's ALMOST as good as being a fox."
The boy, reminded of his misfortune, began to cry again. Dorothy petted and
comforted him and promised to find some way to restore him his own head.
"
If we can manage to get to Ozma," she said, "the Princess will change you
back to yourself in half a second; so you just wear that fox head as comf't'bly
as you can, dear, and don't worry about it at all. It isn't nearly as pretty as
your own head, no matter what the foxes say; but you can get along with it for
a little while longer, can't you?"
"
Don't know," said Button-Bright, doubtfully; but he didn't cry any more after
that.
Dorothy let the maids pin ribbons to her shoulders, after which they were
ready for the King's dinner. When they met the shaggy man in the splendid
drawing room of the palace they found him just the same as before. He had
refused to give up his shaggy clothes for new ones, because if he did that he
would no longer be the shaggy man, he said, and he might have to get
acquainted with himself all over again.
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