"Come, wake up, Drone!" cried Bumbus.
"Aw-ri," yawned Drone.
Here Billy thought he saw an opportunity to run, and giving a sharp twist he broke from Bumbus and started away to get room to jump. But alas for his hopes! the cornstalks suddenly intertwined their tops all about and over him and he found himself again a prisoner.
"How impolite!" laughed Bumbus, "how very impolite of you to think of going away without saying good-by!"
"To the factory with him," said Nickel Plate in a loud voice. And Billy was pulled and hauled through the cornfield up to the factory which bore the sign "Nickel Plate, Bumbus and Glucose." Inside past the grinding machinery and the great vats of boiling syrup and finally thrust into a little room marked "Office."
"Honey Girl!" he cried, catching sight of a young girl seated at the typewriter.
"Billy Bounce!" she cried, starting to her feet with a peculiar smile; but the sound of her voice and something about her eyes told him that it was not Honey Girl at all, but Glucose, that stood before him.
"I, I beg your pardon," he stammered; "I thought you were the Princess."
"Well?" she said questioningly.