shouted the king himself, straining out of a window to
look between the melon-leaves. "Hold, I say! What do you want, young
cobbler?"

"I want your crown and kingdom, sire," boldly answered Jim. "I've
heard of the new law, and I'll stop the melon-vine."

"Let him pass, guards," shouted the king; "and send him hither."

A little page dressed in black led Jim to the throne-room. The king
and his court no longer blazed in gold and jewels. Black covered
everybody and everything, even the golden throne itself, and grief and
dismay were on all faces.

Then said the king, in a hollow tone: "What know you of this vine?
Speak!"

And Jim, tremblingly, told the whole story.

"Wicked boy!" groaned the king. "You well deserve punishment for the
ruin you have brought on the land. But I have passed my royal word,
and you shall try to destroy the vine. If you succeed, bad as you are,
you then will be the king and I the cobbler. But if you fail, you
shall be put where you shall have nothing but melons to eat for the
rest of your days. Guards, take him away!"

That night, before the king and queen and all the assembled court,
when the moon was fairly risen, Nimble Jim touched with the toe of the
magic shoe the end of a tendril that was running rapidly up a tower.

In an instant, every vestige of the vine vanished throughout all the
palace grounds; and in the morning the people all over the country
shouted for joy and cried with one voice: "Let us all go up to the
coronation, for to-day we have a new king who has delivered us from
the horrible vine."

And on they came, in hordes, till the capital was full and the country
about the palace was one vast camp, while throughout the kingdom not a
trace of the vine was to be seen.

Then the nobles and prelates prepared for the coronation. It was
magnificent. They girt Jim with the sword of state, clothed him in the
imperial robes, placed the scepter in his hand, and, as the golden
crown descended upon his head, all the people shouted:

"Hail, King Nimblejimble, our deliverer! Long live the king!"

[Illustration: MAKING AN ENTRANCE FOR THE KING THROUGH THE MELON IN
FRONT OF THE PALACE GATE.]

And the silly boy was happy.

Meanwhile, the poor, faithful old king, who cheerfully had given up
all for his people, was hammering and stitching and digging away on
Jim's cobbler-bench off in the village; and Jim's mother, whom the
naughty boy, in his strange elevation, had forgotten all