12.

The Search for the Wicked Witch.
The soldier with the green whiskers led them through the streets of the Emerald City until they reached the room where the Guardian of the Gates lived.

This officer unlocked their spectacles to put them back in his great box, and then he politely opened the gate for our friends.
"Which road leads to the Wicked Witch of the West ?" asked Dorothy.
"There is no road," answered the Guardian of the Gates.

"No one ever wishes to go that way." "How, then, are we to find her ?" inquired the girl.
"That will be easy," replied the man, "for when she knows you are in the country of the Winkies she will find you, and make you all her slaves." "Perhaps not," said the Scarecrow, "for we mean to destroy her." "Oh, that is different," said the Guardian of the Gates.

"No one has ever destroyed her before, so I naturally thought she would make slaves of you, as she has of the rest.