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spiral of stairs, it had shot out a steel arm holding six interlocking
and furiously spinning wheels and placed them across the platform
like a shield, separating platform and stairs as effectively as a squad
of armed soldiers could have done it.
Shivering, Dorothy pulled the Prince back. The instant his
foot was off the bottom step, the din of bells died away, the arm
with its spinning wheels drew back, and the Machine disappeared
from view, leaving only the sound of Roundelay's jeering laughter
coming from somewhere outside the Tower.
"That's why," Robin said simply.
"And a very good reason, too', said the Cowardly Lion with a
shudder. Every hair on his mane was standing on end, and he shook
it angrily as he padded to the dark glass wall and flattened his nose
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against it in an attempt to see where the laughter was coming from
"I wish I'd squashed that beetly little Seer when I had my paws on
him!" he growled.
"But then we'd never get the Circlet!" Fess pointed out.
"We're never going to get it anyway, far as I can see," Dorothy
sighed. "Unless..." She looked nervously at the stair. "I weigh the
least of anybody, I s'pect. Maybe if 1 tried it-on my very tippy
toes.
"Nonsense! I won't hear of it!" roared the Cowardly Lion, his
mane bushing up uncontrollably again.
"It wouldn't work, anyhow," Robin told her. "The alarm's
too sensitive. Why, an ordinary blue-bottle fly lighted on that
bottom step this morning, and set off the whole alarm."
"How about the second step? Or the third or fourth?" the
Prince demanded. He was still glaring up at the platform as if it had
insulted him personally.
"They're all the same. The least vibration on the stairs, and the
Machine comes out to see what's going on."
"What if I climbed up the banister?" Fess suggested.
Robin shook his head, but shrugged and said, "Try it if you
like."
"Oh, no, don't!" Dorothy begged. "I couldn't stand that
racket again! Come on, let's get out of this awful place, and try to
think of some way to make Roundelay get the Circlet for us."
Merry and the Unicorn had bolted into the Round Room at the
first sound of the alarms, and were uneasily waiting there when
the others returned. Fred had bolted with them, to his subsequent
intense shame, and was now pretending stern and single-minded
interest in the large door-the thick round glass one.
"Don't worry about being locked in, Your Highness," he told
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the Prince in his most responsible voice "One good kick, and
there'll be nothing of this thing left to lock."
"You think you can bring yourself to kick this time?" rumbled
the Cowardly Lion, who had not forgotten the Nursery.
"Don't worry about that either," Fred muttered. "That was in
my stupid days, you know. I realize now that sometimes the best
thing to do with manners and training is to forget them."
"Well, I've been trained to eat, and I'm having a little trouble
forgetting that at the moment," the Lion confessed. "In fact, I'm
about to forget my manners, too, and ask our little King Robin
here if he happens to be ruler of any cooks."
"You bet I am!" Robin told him. "Merry, just go down to the
kitchen and tell them to send up a banquet, will you? With plenty
of barley for Fred, and-excuse me, but what does the Unicorn
like to eat?"
"I don't suppose you'd have any quatrefoils, would you?" said
that creature wistfully. "Or even a few plain fleur-de-lys?"
"Not unless they're circular," Robin sighed. "Merry. just say
'flowers' and we'll see what they bring. And tell them to turn on
that moon-it's almost dark."
Without their noticing, afternoon had, indeed, slipped into
dusk, and the light was fading fast. Very shortly, however, a large
moon-like lamp began to glow from the glass dome above their
heads, and was soon filling the room with its soft radiance.
"Is everything round here.-" Dorothy inquired, blinking curi-
ously at this odd but attractive lighting system.
"Absolutely everything," Robin said. "Food, houses, furni-
ture! And the people sing rounds and talk in circles-and write
round-robin letters with ball-point pens! I've only been here a day,
and already I'd give most anything just for the sight of a straight
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line or a square!"
"It's a pretty place, though," Fess remarked from the window,
through which he was admiring the view of the shining glass city,
and the moon-lamps blinking on in dome after dome.
"I know it," Robin admitted. "And the Roundheads are nice
friendly people, too-all except Roundelay. But I'm not a Round-
head, and I don't know how to be a king, and all I want is to get
away!"
"Of course you do," Dorothy agreed. "That old Roundelay
had no business keeping you here in the first place. You and Merry
just stick with us, and when we escape, you can come too!"
"The question is," Fess said, "Can any of us escape.?"
Chapter 17
IT was quite a question Fess had asked. Trying
to answer it kept the travelers busy all the time they were eating the
excellent banquet Robin had provided (the Unicorn got tuberoses
and bachelor buttons, which she found delicious) and long after
the dishes had been cleared away. Fred had relieved their minds
about the locked glass door; but what about the bridge? The
Roundheads had drawn it in as soon as the travelers had crossed
over it that afternoon, and it hadn't been extended since. Robin
considered this, then said,
"I don't think that'll be a problem. It all depends on our
timing." He explained that in their peddling days the Roundheads
had kept the bridge stretched out across the whirling road most of
the time, because they were constantly going and coming on their
rounds. But from now on they planned to extend it for just one
hour in the early morning, between six and seven o'clock-barely
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long enough for the people to go out to the hills and gather enough
prickly pears for their daily ration of Pi. "You remember Pi-that
dessert we had for dinner," Robin added.
Fess, who had had three pieces, remembered it very well, and
quickly said so. "Do they have it every day:" he asked enviously.
''Yes-it's their national dish. Well, I thought we might get up
before six o'clock, and get all ready, and then the minute they push
the bridge Out, Fred can kick down the door and we'll all run like
sixty, and storm the gates, and be the very first ones on the bridge.
I'll bet we could bet across before anybody could stop us!
"I don't want to get across until I have the Circlet." Prince
Gules said firmly.
"Oh," said Robin, rather dashed. "I sort of forgot about the
Circlet. I suppose you couldn't just buy another Circlet exactly
like it?" he suggested without much hope.
"There are no others like it" the Prince exclaimed. Then,
realizing that Robin had not yet been told of the magical powers of
the Circlets, he explained that the manual skill, and therefore the
prosperity, of everyone in Halidom depended on this particular
Circlet and no other. Of course, once Robin understood this, he
saw perfectly why the Prince wouldn't leave without it.
"But I still don't see how we're to get it," he sighed. "And
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