The Wizard makes Tik-Tok the superintendent of the scalawagon factory. The scalawagons are conscious, but not very smart; Tik-Tok pounds sense into them with a rubber mallet. His new duties wear on the mechanical man, however, and he runs down sooner than expected. Bell-snickle finds the factory; bent on mischief, the monster knocks the stationary Tik-Tok out a window. Bell-snickle ignores Tik-Tok's warning signs, and fuels the scalawagons with "flabber-gas" (apparently a pun on the word "flabbergast"); they quickly fly away. In the disorder, Bell-snickle is soaked in the fluid; blown up like a balloon, he/she/it sails away into the sky — and disappears from the plot for ten chapters. ("Flabber-gas" is a liquid — "gas" as in gasoline — but has the effect of lighter-than air gasses like hydrogen and helium.)