"Your Majesty has tasted my pie before," said Harold's mother innocently. "I sent a piece with Harold's luncheon one day, and he tells me you approved of it. That is why we have it to-day for dessert."
"Ah! I approve of it, indeed! I shall never forget your pie, dear little Mother!" cried the Red King with a laugh. "It is worth adventuring much to obtain even a bite of pies like yours."
"They taste best of all at midnight," said Harold mischievously.
"That I cannot believe," said Red Rex, frowning at him. "I never ate pie so delicious before this day!"
"Do you think one piece of pie hot is worth five pies cold, Your Majesty?" asked Harold.
"Yes, indeed!" cried the Red King, turning still redder. "Especially if eaten in such pleasant company."
"So thought not the wicked old woman who stole my pies," said Harold's mother. "I wonder if she will ever dare to claim that beautiful shawl which she left behind her?"
"I dare say not," frowned the Red King. "And inasmuch as the Lord Mayor declares that she must have been a native of my Kingdom, intruding within your walls, I hereby make over to you that shawl which she has forfeited by her wicked deed. Wear it henceforth without a qualm, Mother."
She wore it to church the very next Sunday, and all the ladies envied her this last piece of good luck which seemed to follow the coming of the Red King.
Red Rex was eager to visit every corner of Kisington about which he had heard in the Chronicles. Since this was vacation time, Harold and Robert and Richard were overjoyed to be his guides. They visited the Old Curiosity Shop where the Lion Passant had lived dumbly for years before the coming of the Patent Medicine Man. The store was still kept by a wheezy old fellow with a cough; though he was not the same who had spilled the Elixir over the Lion Passant. Of him the War-Lord bought so many curiosities that he and his little old wife became quite rich, and never had to worry about the future any more.