"True," said the King, reflecting for a moment. "Please, Your Majesty!" said Meg, in her most winsome tones. "I do so long to help Rafe pick the red apples for your pies and skim the yellow cream of the little red cow. And please, I do so long to help him cook for his poor neighbors, who will miss him sadly if he goes. Now that we have the prize, we can do much for them. Please, Your Majesty!" "Please, Your Majesty!" echoed Rafe. "Please, Your Majesty!" begged the Queen. So the King hemmed and hawed and yielded. "But see, Baron Applepy," he said, "that you make me three fine pies every day, for which my swiftest messenger shall call. Now, farewell to you--and to all! We must be off. It is past dinner-time." "Heaven bless Your Majesties," said Rafe and Meg, bowing and curtsying low. Then Rafe lifted the little maid into the white cart beside the hundred sacks of flour and the bag of silver, and amid shouts and cheers away they drove the white oxen toward the little house on the acre of land under the red-apple tree, where the little red cow was waiting for them. And there they lived happily ever after, making three pies a day for the King at an enormous price, and feeding the beloved poor people, their neighbors, for no price at all. XVII: THE MYSTERY OF THE PIE Red Rex greeted the close of this story with an enormous sigh. "Three of those delicious pies every day!" said he. "Would I had a messenger to bring such to me!" "It might be arranged, Your Majesty," suggested Harold, "if our two countries were at peace. I know that my mother would be glad to make such pies for you, even as Rafe and his Margot did for the King of old. The distance from Kisington to your Capitol is not so very great, I think; and doubtless Your Majesty has messengers fleeter than the one of long ago." "And your mother's pies are quite as good!" exclaimed Red Rex. "I have never tasted better. So fat, so juicy, so generous! The tops fine, rounded hills; the crust so crisp, which your knife crunches daintily; the sight and smell of them is tempting!" The Red King's eyes rolled in his head and he swayed ecstatically, like a poet composing a rhyme. "And yet you have seen but a wee wedge of one pie!" exclaimed Harold. "It must have pleased Your Majesty, indeed, to make your impression so true." Red Rex eyed him strangely. "H'm, yes," he said. "I have a vivid imagination in such matters. I can almost fancy I have eaten a whole pie--two--three--four whole pies! What a feast!" Harold's eyes had been straying toward something white concealed in the grass not far from the Red King's seat. He took a step forward now, bending low. Then he uttered an exclamation. "Five pies, Your Majesty!" he cried, looking straight at the King. "There were six, which the old woman stole. Here are five empty pie-plates!"