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Cap'n Bill and Trot were much astonished at this story and felt grieved for the

poor Ork, but the little man Pessim seemed to think it a good joke. He began

laughing when he heard the story and laughed until he choked, after which he

lay down on the ground and rolled and laughed again, while the tears of

merriment coursed down his wrinkled cheeks.

Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" he finally gasped, sitting up and wiping his eyes. "This is

too rich! It's almost too joyful to be true."

I don't see anything funny about it," remarked Trot indignantly.

You would if you'd had my experience," said Pessim, getting upon his feet and

gradually resuming his solemn and dissatisfied expression of countenance.

The same thing happened to me."

Oh, did it? And how did you happen to come to this island?" asked the girl.

I didn't come; the neighbors brought me," replied the little man, with a frown

at the recollection. "They said I was quarrelsome and fault-finding and blamed

me because I told them all the things that went wrong, or never were right,

and because I told them how things ought to be. So they brought me here and

left me all alone, saying that if I quarreled with myself, no one else would be

made unhappy. Absurd, wasn't it?"

Seems to me," said Cap'n Bill, "those neighbors did the proper thing."

Well," resumed Pessim, "when I found myself King of this island I was obliged

to live upon fruits, and I found many fruits growing here that I had never seen

before. I tasted several and found them good and wholesome. But one day I

ate a lavender berry--as the Ork did--and immediately I grew so small that I

was scarcely two inches high. It was a very unpleasant condition and like the

Ork I became frightened. I could not walk very well nor very far, for every lump

of earth in my way seemed a mountain, every blade of grass a tree and every

grain of sand a rocky boulder. For several days I stumbled around in an agony

of fear. Once a tree toad nearly gobbled me up, and if I ran out from the

shelter of the bushes the gulls and cormorants swooped down upon me.

Finally I decided to eat another berry and become nothing at all, since life, to

one as small as I was, had become a dreary nightmare.

At last I found a small tree that I thought bore the same fruit as that I had

eaten. The berry was dark purple instead of light lavender, but otherwise it

was quite similar. Being unable to climb the tree, I was obliged to wait

underneath it until a sharp breeze arose and shook the limbs so that a berry

The Scarecrow of Oz