All the world over we are very conscious of the trees in spring, and watch with delight how the network of twigs on the wych-elms is becoming spangled with tiny puce flowers, like little beetles caught in a spider's web, and how little lemon-coloured buds are studding the thorn. While as to the long red-gold buds of the horse-chestnuts--they come bursting out with a sort of a visual bang. And now the beech is hatching its tiny perfectly-formed leaves--and all the other trees in turn. And at first we delight in the diversity of the colours and shapes of the various young leaves--noting how those of the birch are like a swarm of green bees, and those of the lime so transparent that they are stained black with the shadow of those above and beneath them, and how those of the elm diaper the sky with the prettiest pattern, and are the ones that grow the most slowly. Then we cease to note their idiosyncrasies, and they merge, till autumn, into one solid, unobtrusive green curtain for throwing into relief brighter and sharper things. There is nothing so dumb as a tree in full leaf. It was in the spring of his fiftieth year that Master Nathaniel Chanticleer had his first real anxiety. It concerned his only son Ranulph, a little boy of twelve years old. Master Nathaniel had been elected that year to the highest office in the state--that of Mayor of Lud-in-the-Mist and High Seneschal of Dorimare. Ex officio, he was president of the Senate and chief justice on the Bench. According to the constitution, as drawn up by the men of the revolution, he was responsible for the safety and defence of the country in case of attack by sea or land; it was for him to see that both justice and the country's revenues were properly administered; and his time was held to be at the disposal of the most obscure citizen with a grievance. Actually--apart from presiding on the Bench--his duties had come to consist of nothing more onerous than being a genial and dignified chairman of a comfortable and select club, for that was what in reality the Senate had now become. Nevertheless, though it was open to question whether his official duties were of the slightest use to anyone, they were numerous enough to occupy most of his time and to cause him to be unconscious of the under-currents in his home.