next morning the king sent his people out to seek the track, but it was all in vain, for in every street poor children were sitting, picking up peas, and saying, "it must have rained peas, last night." "we must think of something else," said the king; "keep thy shoes on when thou goest to bed, and before thou comest back from the place where thou art taken, hide one of them there, i will soon contrive to find it." the black mannikin heard this plot, and at night when the soldier again ordered him to bring the princess, revealed it to him, and told him that he knew of no expedient to counteract this stratagem, and that if the shoe were found in the soldier’s house it would go badly with him.