ared,
and he bought all the man's stock.

"I can buy corn for you for seed, and I can order poppers enough to
supply the city," suggested the Pop-corn man.

"So do," cried the King. And he gave orders for seven ships' cargoes
of seed corn and fifty of poppers. "My people shall eat nothing else,"
said the King, "and the whole kingdom shall be planted with it. I am
satisfied that it is the best national food."

That day the court dined on pop-corn, and as it was very light
and unsatisfying, they had to eat a long time. They were all the
after-noon dining. Right after dinner the King wrote out his royal
decree that all the inhabitants should that year plant pop-corn
instead of any other grain or any vegetable, and that as soon as the
ships arrived they should make it their only article of food. For the
King, when he had learned from the Pop-corn man that the corn needed
to be not only ripe but well dried before it would pop, could not
wait, but had ordered five hundred cargoes of pop-corn for immediate
use.

So as soon as the ships arrived the people began at once to pop corn
and eat it. There was a sound of popping corn all over the city, and
the people popped all day long. It was necessary that they should,
because it took such a quantity to satisfy hunger, and when they were
not popping they had to eat. People shook the poppers until their arms
were tired, then gave them to others, and sat down to eat. Men, women
and children popped. It was all that they could do, with the exception
of planting the seed-corn, and then they were faint with hunger as
they worked. The stores and schools were closed. In the palace the
King and Queen themselves were obliged to pop in order to secure
enough to eat, and the nobles and the court-ladies toiled and ate,
day and night. But the little stolen Princess and the King's son, the
little Prince, could not pop corn, for they were only babies.

When the people across the river had been popping corn for about a
month, the Pop-corn man went to the King of Romalia's palace, and
sought an audience. He told him how he had discovered his daughter in
the palace of the King across the river.

The King of Romalia clasped his hands in despair. "I must make war,"
said he, "but my army is nothing to his."

However, he at once went about making war. He ordered the swords to be
cleaned with sand-paper until they shone, and new bullets to be cast.
The Bee Guards were drilled every day, and the pe