"At daybreak, we would like some breakfast, and then we would like to have you row us across the river." The ferryman neither moved nor spoke.

He sat in his doorway and looked straight ahead.

"I think he must be deaf and dumb," Cayke whispered to her companion.

Then she stood directly in front of the ferryman, and putting her mouth close to his ear, she yelled as loudly as she could, "Good evening!" The ferryman scowled.
"Why do you yell at me, woman ?" he asked.
"Can you hear what I say ?" asked in her ordinary tone of voice.
"Of course," replied the man.
"Then why didn't you answer the Frogman ?" "Because," said the ferryman, "I don't understand the frog language." "He speaks the same words that I do and in the same way," declared Cayke.
"Perhaps," replied the ferryman, "but to me his voice sounded like a frog's croak.

I know that in the Land of Oz animals can speak our language, and so can the birds and bugs and fishes; but in MY ears, they sound merely like growls and chirps and croaks." "Why is that ?" asked the Cookie Cook in surprise.
"Once, many years ago, I cut the tail off a fox which had taunted me, and I stole some birds' eggs from a nest to make an omelet with, and also I pulled a fish from the river and left it lying on the bank to gasp for lack of water until it died.