THE ORIGINAL MAGAZINE TEXT! THE MAD KING: All Ludstadt was in an uproar. The mad king had escaped. For ten years no man of them all had set eyes upon the face of the boy-king who had been hastened to the grim castle of Blentz upon the death of the old king, his father. Into this troubled country came Barney Custer of Beatrice, Nebraska, a virtual twin of the mad king. BARNEY CUSTER OF BEATRICE tells of the fearless young American’s second visit to Lutha, where he squares a few accounts he was forced to overlook in his hasty retreat from the tiny kingdom after he had incurred the jealous hatred of the ingrate monarch, whose scepter he had restored.