ereigns more closely than any other
person, pointed out certain objections which he begged their Majesties
to ponder. And Councillor after Councillor rose and protested against
the scheme with the utmost solemnity and prolixity.

Queen Selina, who was now far more eager than the King to have the mine
reorganised on a more paying principle, would have answered the critics
herself, if Clarence had not induced her to leave the reply in his
hands.

"Well," he said, rising, "have you all done? No other gentleman wish to
hear himself talk?... All right then. Now I'll have _my_ little say. Of
course, what the venerable old Father Christmas in the chair told you
was perfectly correct. If we choose to set these little beggars free,
it's no business of anybody but ourselves. The Guv'nor--that is to say,
his Majesty--was merely _telling_ you about it--not asking what you
thought about it. Sorry if you don't approve, but we shall get over it
in time. And really, your objections, if you won't mind my saying so,
are absolutely footling. All they amount to is--because Gold Mines here
always _have_ been worked by gangs of Yellow Gnomes, therefore they must
be for all time. Now that's just the kind of fine old crusted pig-headed
Conservativism that's kept this the stick-in-the-mud Country it is! Look
at the sort of business you've been wasting our time in jawing about
to-day--why, in the country We came from, a Rural District Council would
have settled it all in five minutes if they thought it worth bothering
about at all. Street lanterns and watchmen's horns and old women's
sweet-stalls indeed! If you could only walk through--I won't say one of
our Cities, that might be too much of a shock for you--but through an
ordinary suburb such as we lived in, and saw how things were done
_there_, it would open your eyes a bit, I can tell you! You've been
marking time all these centuries while other Kingdoms have been making
progress. I'll tell you about some of the things we've learnt to do and
use, just as an ordinary matter of course--and you haven't so much as
heard of."

Here he gave them a vivid description of the chief inventions and
discoveries of the last eighty years, from the steam-engine to the
aeroplane, which latter, he declared, put their sixty-stork-power car
completely in the shade.

"If it is the fact," said the President, "that the inhabitants of your
Royal Highness's Country can work such marvels, you must be even
mightie