Once over the river they went about peddling pop-corn.  The man sent the boys all over the city, but he himself went straight to the palace.

He knocked at the palace-door, and the maid-servant came.  “Is the King at home?” asked the Pop-corn man.

The maid said he was, and the Pop-corn man asked to see him.  Just then a baby cried.

“What baby is that crying?” asked he.

“A baby that was brought here at sunset, several months ago,” replied the maid; and he knew at once that he had found the Princess.

“Will you find out if I can see the King?” he said.

“I’ll see,” answered the maid.  And she went in to find the King.  Pretty soon she returned and asked the Pop-corn man to step into the parlor, which he did, and soon the King came downstairs.

[Illustration:  “You!” Cried the baron scornfully.]

The Pop-corn man displayed his wares, and the King tasted.  He had never seen any pop-corn before, and he was both an epicure and a man of hobbies.  “It is the nicest food that ever I tasted,” he declared, 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.