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But when he saw the woman with her bonnet on wrong he knew at once that she must be one of the Princess’s nurses. So he ordered off the dog, and ushered the nurse into the tower. He led her into his study, and asked her to sit down. “Now, madam, what can I do for you?” he inquired quite politely.

“Oh, my lord!” cried the Head-nurse in her muffled voice, “help me to find the Princess.”

The Baron, who was a tall lean old man and wore a very large-figured dressing-gown trimmed with fur, frowned, and struck his fist down upon the table. “Help you to find the Princess!” he exclaimed; “don’t you suppose I should find her on my own account if I could? I should have found her long before this if the idiots had not broken all my bottles, and crystals, and retorts, and mirrors, and spilled all the magic fluids, so that I cannot practice any white magic at all. The idea of looking for a princess in a bottle–that comes of pinning one’s faith upon philosophy!”

“Then you cannot find the Princess by white magic?” the Head-nurse asked timidly.

The Baron pounded the table again. “Of course I cannot,” he replied, “with all my magical utensils smashed in the search for her.”

The Head-nurse sighed pitifully.

“I suppose that you do not like to go about with your face in the crown of your bonnet?” the Baron remarked in a harsh voice.

The Head-nurse replied sadly that she did not.

“It doesn’t seem to me that I should mind it much,” said the Baron.

The Head-nurse looked at his grim old face through the peep-holes in her bonnet-crown, and thought to herself that if she were no prettier than he, she should not mind much either, but she said nothing.

Suddenly there was a knock at the tower-door.

“Excuse me a moment,” said the Baron; “my housekeeper is deaf, and my other servants have gone out.” And he ran down the tower-stair, his dressing-gown sweeping after him.

Presently he returned, and there was a young man with him. This young man was as pretty as a girl, and he looked very young. His blue eyes were very sharp and bright, and he had rosy cheeks and fair curly hair. He was dressed very poorly, and around his shoulders were festooned strings of something that looked like fine white flowers, but it was in reality pop-corn. He carried a great basket of pop-corn, and bore a corn-popper over his shoulder.

When he entered he bowed low to the Head-nurse; her bonnet did not seem to surprise him at all. “Would you like to buy some of my nice pop-corn, madam?” he asked.

She curtesied. “Not to-day,” she replied.

But in reality she did not know what pop-corn was. She had never seen any, and neither had the Baron. That indeed was the reason why he had admitted the man–he was curious to see what he was carrying. “Is it good to eat?” he inquired.

“Try it, my lord,” answered the man. So the Baron put a pop-corn in his mouth and chewed it critically. “It is very good indeed,” he declared.

The man passed the basket to the Head-nurse, and she lifted the cape of her bonnet and put a pop-corn in her mouth, and nibbled it delicately. She also thought it very good.

“But there is no use in discussing new articles of food when the kingdom is under the cloud that it is at present, and my retorts and crystals all smashed,” said the Baron.

“Why, what is the cloud, my lord?” inquired the Pop-corn man. Then the Baron told him the whole story.

“Of course it is necromancy,” remarked the Pop-corn man thoughtfully, when the Baron had finished.

The Baron pounded on the table until it danced. “Necromancy!” he cried, “of course it’s necromancy! Who but a necromancer could have made a child invisible, and stolen her away in the face and eyes of the whole court?”