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 people 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.