caught in the act of throwing
stones at the palace windows.

The first to fill this important office was the young king's
father-in-law, an excellent man of the name of Caboche. He was much
beloved by everyone, and so sensible that he was not at all vain at
rising at once to the dignity of seneschal, when he had only been a
common farmer, but went about his fields every day as usual. This
conduct so struck his king that very soon he never did anything
without consulting him.

Each morning Caboche and his son-in-law had breakfast together, and
when they had finished, the king took out of his iron chest great
bundles of state papers, which he desired to talk over with his
seneschal. Sometimes they would spend two hours at least in deciding
these important matters, but more often after a few minutes Caboche
would say:

'Excuse me, sire, but your majesty does not understand this affair in
the least. Leave it to me, and I will settle it.'

'But what am I to do, then?' asked the king. And his minister
answered:

'Oh, you can rule your wife, and see after your fruit garden. You will
find that those two things will take up all your time.'

'Well, perhaps you are right,' the king replied; secretly glad to be
rid of the cares of government. But though Caboche did all the work,
Petaldo never failed to appear on grand occasions, in his royal mantle
of red linen, holding a sceptre of gilded wood. Meanwhile he passed
his mornings in studying books, from which he learned the proper
seasons to plant his fruit trees, and when they should be pruned; and
his afternoons in his garden, where he put his knowledge into
practice. In the evening he played cards with his father-in-law, and
supped in public with the queen, and by ten o'clock everybody in the
palace was fast asleep.

The queen, on her side, was quite as happy as her husband. She loved
to be in her dairy, and nobody in the kingdom could make such
delicious cheeses. But however busy she might be, she never forgot to
bake a little barley cake, and make a tiny cream cheese, and to put
them under a particular rose-tree in the garden. If you had asked her
whom they were for, and where they went to, she could not have told
you, but would have said that on the night of her marriage a fairy had
appeared to her in a dream, and had bidden her to perform this
ceremony.

After the king and the queen had six children, a little boy was born,
with a small red cap on his head, so that