'Then he must have got yours,' he cried, turning to his daughter.

'Indeed, father, it is safe in my pocket,' replied she, taking it
out as she spoke; and they all three looked at each other and
remained silent.

'Well,' said the king at last, 'the man who has done this is
cleverer than most men, and if he will make himself known to me
he shall marry the princess and govern half my kingdom while I am
alive, and the whole of it when I am dead. Go and announce this
in the ballroom,' he added to an attendant, 'and bring the fellow
hither.'

So the attendant went into the ballroom and did as the king had
bidden him, when, to his surprise, not one man, but twenty,
stepped forward, all with black dots on their faces.

'I am the person you want,' they all exclaimed at once, and the
attendant, as much bewildered as the chamberlain had been,
desired them to follow him into the king's presence.

But the question was too difficult for the king to decide, so he
called together his council. For hours they talked, but to no
purpose, and in the end they hit upon a plan which they might
just as well have thought of at the beginning.

And this was the plan. A child was to be brought to the palace,
and next the king's daughter would give her an apple. Then the
child was to take the apple and be led into a room where the
twenty men with the black dots were sitting in a ring. And to