accustomed cheerful manner. "Tell me who you are, and
whence you come."

"I am known as Woot the Wanderer," answered the boy,
"and I have come, through many travels and by
roundabout ways, from my former home in a far corner of
the Gillikin Country of Oz."

"To wander from one's home," remarked the Scarecrow,
"is to encounter dangers and hardships, especially if
one is made of meat and bone. Had you no friends in
that corner of the Gillikin Country? Was it not
homelike and comfortable?"

To hear a man stuffed with straw speak, and speak so
well, quite startled Woot, and perhaps he stared a bit
rudely at the Scarecrow. But after a moment he replied:

"I had home and friends, your Honorable Strawness,
but they were so quiet and happy and comfortable that I
found them dismally stupid. Nothing in that corner of
Oz interested me, but I believed that in other parts of
the country I would find strange people and see new
sights, and so I set out upon my wandering journey. I
have been a wanderer for nearly a full year, and now my
wanderings have brought me to this splendid castle."

"I suppose," said the Tin Woodman, "that in this year
you have seen so much that you have become very wise."