prince.

"How should they?" asked St. George simply. "They are prodigies."

"Quite so," said the prince again. "It is almost incredible that
these instances seem to suggest to no one that there must be other
ways to 'learn' music and mathematics--and, therefore, everything
else--than those known to your civilization. Let me assure you that
such cases as these, far from being miracles and prodigies, are
perfectly normal when once the principle is understood, as we of
Yaque understand it. It is the average intelligence among your
people which is abnormal, inasmuch as it is unable to perform these
functions which it was so clearly intended to exercise."

"Do you mean," asked St. George, "that we need not learn--as we
understand 'learn'?"

"Precisely," said the prince simply. "You are accustomed, I was told
in New York, to say that there is 'no royal road to learning.' On
the contrary, I say to you that the possibilities of these children
are in every one. But to my intense surprise I find that we of Yaque
are the only ones in the world who understand how to use these
possibilities. Our system of education consists simply in mastering
this principle. After that, all knowledge--all languages, for
instance--everything--belongs to us."

St. George looked away to the rugged sides of Mount Khalak, lying in
its clouds of iris morning mist, unreal as a mountain of Ultima
Thule. It was all right--what he had just been hearing was a part of
this ultimate and fantastic place to which he had come. And yet _he_
was real enough, and so, according to certain approved dialectic,
perhaps these things were realities, too. He stole a glance at the
prince's profile. Here was actually a man who was telling him that
he need not have faced Latin and Greek and calculus; that they might
have been his of his own accord if only he had understood how to
call them in!

"That would make a very jolly thing of college," he pensively
conceded. "You could not show me how it is managed, your Highness?"
he besought. "That will hardly come in bulk, too--"

The prince shook his head, smiling.

"I could not 'show you,' as you say," he answered, "any more than I
could, at present, send a wireless communication without the
apparatus--though it will be only a matter of time until that is
accomplished, too."

St. George pulled himself up sharply. He glanced over his shoulder
and saw Amory polishing his pince-nez and looking quite as if he
were leaning