“See here, father and mother,” cried he; “we’ll all have some of this; it evidently is not poison, and it is good—­a great deal better than potatoes!”

Patroclus and Daphne hesitated, but they were hungry too.  Since the crop of Giant’s heads had sprung up in their field instead of potatoes, they had been hungry most of the time; so they tasted.

“It is good,” said Daphne; “but I think it would be better cooked.”  So she put some in a kettle of water over the fire, and let it boil awhile; then she dished it up, and they all ate it.  It was delicious.  It tasted more like stewed pumpkin than anything else; in fact it was stewed pumpkin.

Daphne was inventive, and something of a genius; and next day she concocted another dish out of the Giant’s heads.  She boiled them, and sifted them, and mixed them with eggs and sugar and milk and spice; then she lined some plates with puff paste, filled them with the mixture, and set them in the oven to bake.

The result was unparalleled; nothing half so exquisite had ever been tasted.  They were all in ecstasies, AEneas in particular.  They gathered all the Giant’s heads and stored them in the cellar.  Daphne baked pies of them every day, and nothing could surpass the felicity of the whole family.

One morning the King had been out hunting, and happened to ride by the cottage of Patroclus with a train of his knights.  Daphne was baking pies as usual, and the kitchen door and window were both open, for the room was so warm; so the delicious odor of the pies perfumed the whole air about the cottage.

“What is it smells so utterly lovely?” exclaimed the King, sniffing in a rapture.

He sent his page in to see.

“The housewife is baking Giant’s head pies,” said the page returning.

“What?” thundered the King.  “Bring out one to me!”

So the page brought out a pie to him, and after all his knights had tasted to be sure it was not poison, and the king had watched them sharply for a few moments to be sure they were not killed, he tasted too.

[Illustration:  THEN THE KING KNIGHTED HIM ON THE SPOT.]

Then he beamed.  It was a new sensation, and a new sensation is a great boon to a king.

“I never tasted anything so altogether superfine, so utterly magnificent in my life,” cried the king; “stewed peacocks’ tongues from the Baltic, are not to be compared with it!  Call out the housewife immediately!”

So Daphne came out trembling, and Patroclus and AEneas also.

“What a charming lad!” exclaimed the King as his glance fell upon AEneas.  “Now tell me about these wonderful pies, and I will reward you as becomes a monarch!”

Then Patroclus fell on his knees and related the whole history of the Giant’s head pies from the beginning.

The King actually blushed.  “And I forgot to knight you, oh noble and brave man, and to make a lady of your admirable wife!”