"It's only Nimble Jim, the Cobbler. I want to see the king," said the boy.
"Be off, you fellow!" shouted the sentry. "Our noble king don't hob-nob with cobblers! Be off, I say, or——" And he shook his spear at our hero ominously.
"Hold, there!" shouted the king himself, straining out of a window to look between the melon-leaves. "Hold, I say! What do you want, young cobbler?"
"I want your crown and kingdom, sire," boldly answered Jim. "I've heard of the new law, and I'll stop the melon-vine."
"Let him pass, guards," shouted the king; "and send him hither."
A little page dressed in black led Jim to the throne-room. The king and his court no longer blazed in gold and jewels. Black covered everybody and everything, even the golden throne itself, and grief and dismay were on all faces.
Then said the king, in a hollow tone: "What know you of this vine? Speak!"
And Jim, tremblingly, told the whole story.
"Wicked boy!" groaned the king. "You well deserve punishment for the ruin you have brought on the land. But I have passed my royal word, and you shall try to destroy the vine. If you succeed, bad as you are, you then will be the king and I the cobbler. But if you fail, you shall be put where you shall have nothing but melons to eat for the rest of your days. Guards, take him away!"
That night, before the king and queen and all the assembled court, when the moon was fairly risen, Nimble Jim touched with the toe of the magic shoe the end of a tendril that was running rapidly up a tower.