This week's short story from The Purple Dragon and Other Fantasies by L. Frank Baum was "Three Wise Men of Gotham". Much like last week's "The Wond'rous Wise Man", it has a lot to do with appearance, perception, and reputation clashing with reality. But this time there are three of them, and they all at least know they are frauds. This invokes not only the Wizard in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but also Kwytoffle in The Enchanted Island of Yew and the Whimsies in The Emerald City of Oz. The character who kept coming to mind more than any other, however, was the Frogman in The Lost Princess of Oz. Like these wise men from Mother Goose in Prose, he knew he wasn't any wiser than anyone else, but everyone thought he was and treated him that way, so he acted the part.
That was the last of the stories from Mother Goose in Prose, so next week starts some from American Fairy Tales and one bonus story.
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