In a calm, matter of fact voice, he began thus: "Senators of Dorimare! Before the entry of the Captain of the Yeomanry we were discussing what dessert we should have at our annual feast. It seems unnecessary to start a fresh subject of discussion before the previous one has been settled to our satisfaction. So, with your permission, I will return to the sweet and pungent (I think these were his Worship's well-chosen words) subject of dessert; for there is one item I should like to add to those that have already been suggested." He paused, and then he said in a loud challenging voice, "Senators of Dorimare! I propose that for the first time since the foundation of our annual feast, we should partake at it of ... fairy fruit!" His colleagues stared at him in open-mouthed amazement. Was this some ill-timed jest? But Ambrose was not given to jesting ... especially on serious occasions. Then, with a certain rough poetry breaking through the artificial diction of the Senate, he began to speak of the events of the year that was nearly over, and the lessons to be learned from them. And the chief lessons, he said, were those of humility and faith. He ended thus: "One of our proverbs says, 'Remember that the Dapple flows into the Dawl.' I have sometimes wondered, recently, whether we have ever really understood the true meaning of that proverb. Our ancestors built the town of Lud-in-the-Mist between these two rivers, and both have brought us their tribute. The tribute of the Dawl has been gold, and we have gladly accepted it. But the tribute of the Dapple we have ever spurned. The Dapple--our placid old friend, in whose waters we learned as lads the gentle art of angling--has silently, through the centuries, been bringing fairy fruit into Dorimare ... a fact that, to my mind, at least, proves that fairy fruit is as wholesome and necessary for man as the various other gifts brought for our welfare by our silent friends--the Dawl's gift of gold, the earth's gift of corn, the hills' gift of shelter and pasturage, and the trees' gift of grapes and apples and shade. "And if all the gifts of Life are good, perhaps, too, are all the shapes she chooses to take, and which we cannot alter. The shape she has taken now for Dorimare is that of an invasion by our ancient foes. Why should we not make a virtue of necessity and throw our gates wide to them as friends?" His colleagues, at first, expressed themselves as horrified. But perhaps they, too, though unknown to themselves, had been altered by recent events. At any rate, this was one of the crises when the strongest man inevitably finds himself at the helm. And there could be no doubt that the strongest man in the Senate was Master Ambrose Honeysuckle.