"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 mightier magicians than were they whom our late King so wisely suppressed." "You're wrong there, old bird!" said Clarence cheerfully; "no Magic about it whatever. All done by brains and enterprise, but--and this is what I am trying to knock into your heads--if we'd been governed by a set of stuffy old fossils like yourselves--if you'll allow me the expression--we should never have got a blessed thing so much as started!" Many, if not most of the Council were sceptical as to the possibility of such inventions as Clarence had described, but the good old Baron assured them that, even during the short time he was in England, and although it was night, he had witnessed many of them with his own eyes, thanks to the powerful illuminants which made darkness almost as light as day. He exhorted his hearers to count themselves fortunate in having gained Sovereigns who possessed such wondrous powers, since their faithful subjects would assuredly now enjoy the benefits of them.