ople could not sleep
for the drums and the fifes.

[Illustration: BOTH THE KING AND QUEEN WERE OBLIGED TO POP.]

When everything was ready the King of Romalia and his army crossed
the river and laid siege to the city. They had expected to have the
passage of the river opposed, but not a foeman was stationed on the
opposite bank. All the spears they could see were the waving green
ones of pop-corn fields. They marched straight up to the city walls
and laid siege. The inhabitants fought on the walls and in the
gate-towers, but not very many could fight at a time, because they
would have to stop and pop corn and eat.

The defenders grew fewer and fewer, some were killed, and all of them
were growing too tired and weak to fight. They could not eat enough
pop-corn to give them strength and have any time left to fight. They
filled their pockets and tried to eat pop-corn as they fought, but
they could not manage that very well.

On the third day the city surrendered with very little loss of life
on either side, and the little Princess Rosetta was restored to her
parents. There was great rejoicing all through Romalia; in the evening
there was an illumination and a torch-light procession. The nurses
marched with their bonnets on the right way, and the Knights of the
Golden Bee were out in full regalia.

The next day the Head-nurse was married, and the King gave her a farm
and a dozen bee-hives for a wedding present, and the Queen a beautiful
bridal bonnet trimmed with white plumes and hollyhocks.

All the court, the Baron and the Pop-corn man went to the wedding, and
wedding-cake and corn-balls were passed around.

After the wedding the Pop-corn man went home. He lived in another
country on the other side of a mountain. The King pressed him to take
some reward. "I am puzzled," he said to the Pop-corn man, "to know
what to offer you. The usual reward in such cases is the hand of the
Princess in marriage, but Rosetta is not a year old. If there is
anything else you can think of"--

The Pop-corn man kissed the King's hand and replied that there was
nothing that he could think of except a little honey-comb. He should
like to carry some to his mother. So the King gave him a great piece
of honey-comb in a silver dish, and the Pop-corn man departed.

He never came to Romalia again, but the Poet Laureate celebrated him
in an epic poem, describing the loss of the Princess and the war
for her rescue. The Princess was never stol