Page 56 - wizard of oz

"Yes, that's right. I am a humbug," the little old man said.
"But you are the only people who know that. I know lots of
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tricks . I tricked you, didn't I?"
"Are you sorry that you tricked us?" the Scarecrow said.
"Are you sorry that you are a humbug?"
"Of course I am," Oz began. "But I can't help it. Sit down
and I will tell you my story. I was born in Omaha—"
"That isn't far from Kansas!" Dorothy cried.
"That's true," Oz said. "But Omaha and Kansas are both a
very long way from here. When I was young, I was a
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balloonist ."
"What's a balloonist?" Dorothy asked.
"He's a man who goes up in a balloon on the day of a
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circus ," replied Oz. "People see the balloon and then they
pay money to watch the animals and other things in the
circus."
"Oh, yes," Dorothy said. "I saw a circus in Kansas."
"One day, I was in the balloon and the rope broke," the
little man went on. "The balloon went up and up, above the
clouds. It flew on for a night and a day and then the balloon
came down in a beautiful country. The people were afraid of
me, because I had come down from the sky. They thought
that 1 was a Great Wizard."
"But you couldn't do any magic at all," the Scarecrow
said slowly. "You were a humbug from the beginning."
"You are right," Oz said. "I told the people to build this
city and they did. They built me a palace and I lived inside it.
I did not want to see anyone, because I was afraid of the
Witches. Two of them were good, but two of them were very
bad. I was afraid of the bad Witches so I was very happy
when the Wicked Witch of the East was killed."
"Then you sent us to kill the Wicked Witch of the West
for you," Dorothy said.

Behind the screen was a little old man. 57