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