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"Don't ask me," replied the Head. "For my part, I'm not anxious to claim

relationship with any common, manufactured article, like you. You may be

all right in your class, but your class isn't my class. You're tin."

The poor Emperor felt so bewildered that for a time he could only stare at

his old Head in silence. Then he said:

"I must admit that I wasn't at all bad looking before I became tin. You're

almost handsome--for meat. If your hair was combed, you'd be quite

attractive."

How do you expect me to comb my hair without help?" demanded the Head,

indignantly. "I used to keep it smooth and neat, when I had arms, but after I

was removed from the rest of me, my hair got mussed, and old Ku-Klip

never has combed it for me."

"I'll speak to him about it," said the Tin Woodman. "Do you remember loving

a pretty Munchkin girl named Nimmie Amee?"

"No," answered the Head. "That is a foolish question. The heart in my body--

when I had a body--might have loved someone, for all I know, but a head

isn't made to love; it's made to think."

Oh; do you think, then?"

I used to think."

You must have been shut up in this cupboard for years and years. What

have you thought about, in all that time?"

"Nothing. That's another foolish question. A little reflection will convince you

that I have had nothing to think about, except the boards on the inside of

the cupboard door, and it didn't take me long to think of everything about

those boards that could be thought of. Then, of course, I quit thinking."

And are you happy?"

Happy? What's that?"

Don't you know what happiness is?" inquired the Tin Woodman.

I haven't the faintest idea whether it's round or square, or black or white, or

what it is. And, if you will pardon my lack of interest in it, I will say that I

don't care."

The Tin Woodman of Oz