Everyone has need of baked goods. Be you a pauper or a prince, breads and tarts shall not be strangers to you. And thus Billy came to know a great deal of different folk. For he worked as delivery boy in the grand bakery of Mr. Crust, which was the jewel of the town’s plaza. Every morning, Billy would ferry chocolate buns, lemon pies and loaves of bread to their customers.

One morn, Billy took a croissant to the Prince in his castle, and when he went in the cook-room, he heard a queer little talk.

Billy heard the cook cry, “I want one bun, two buns, big buns, and a sun-bun!”

Billy blinked at the cook, then crept past the crocks to seek where the sun-bun might glow. By the stove, a bright round bun sat humming in a pan, while the cook cried, "Run, sun-bun, run!" Then the bun gave a bright, hot glow that led Billy through a low back door toward the Prince’s hall.

Billy saw a big brass egg in the hall, cold as a wall, while the sun-bun hummed, “Warm the egg, warm the king,” and the Prince’s shut door shook. Billy heard one tap, then two taps, then a loud thunder-clap, as the sun-bun made the cold brass egg glow red as a cap. Then the door flew wide with a bang and a clang, and the Prince cried, “Wake, warm king, wake!”

Billy saw the warm king rise from the brass egg, while the Prince charged the sun-bun, but Billy sent its heat to Mr. Crust’s bakery.