“That is true. We must have a pasture within a pasture, so to speak. The common grass would serve our inch-high cows as a green forest of palms, while round the root of each tall stem would stretch a tiny carpet of microscopic grass. Yes, I think our scheme will work fairly well. And it would be very interesting, coming into contact with the races below us. What sweet little things the inch-high bull-dogs would be! I doubt if even _Muriel_ would run away from one of them!” “Don’t you think we ought to have a _crescendo_ series, as well?” said Lady Muriel. “Only fancy being a hundred yards high! One could use an elephant as a paper-weight, and a crocodile as a pair of scissors!” “And would you have races of different sizes communicate with one another?” I enquired. “Would they make war on one another, for instance, or enter into treaties?” “_War_ we must exclude, I think. When you could crush a whole nation with one blow of your fist, you couldn’t conduct war on equal terms. But anything, involving a collision of _minds_ only, would be possible in our ideal world—for of course we must allow _mental_ powers to all, irrespective of size. Perhaps the fairest rule would be that, the _smaller_ the race, the _greater_ should be its intellectual development!” “Do you mean to say,” said Lady Muriel, “that these manikins of an inch high are to _argue_ with me?” “Surely, surely!” said the Earl. “An argument doesn’t depend for its logical force on the _size_ of the creature that utters it!” She tossed her head indignantly. “I would _not_ argue with any man less than six inches high!” she cried. “I’d make him _work_!” “What at?” said Arthur, listening to all this nonsense with an amused smile. “_Embroidery!_” she readily replied. “What _lovely_ embroidery they would do!” “Yet, if they did it wrong,” I said, “you couldn’t _argue_ the question. I don’t know _why_: but I agree that it couldn’t be done.” “The reason is,” said Lady Muriel, “one couldn’t sacrifice one’s _dignity_ so far.” “Of course one couldn’t!” echoed Arthur. “Any more than one could argue with a potato. It would be altogether—excuse the ancient pun—_infra dig._!” “I doubt it,” said I. “Even a pun doesn’t _quite_ convince me.” “Well, if that is _not_ the reason,” said Lady Muriel, “what reason would you give?” I tried hard to understand the meaning of this question: but the persistent humming of the bees confused me, and there was a drowsiness in the air that made every thought stop and go to sleep before it had got well thought out: so all I could say was “That must depend on the _weight_ of the potato.” I felt the remark was not so sensible as I should have liked it to be. But Lady Muriel seemed to take it quite as a matter of course. “In that case——” she began, but suddenly started, and turned away to listen. “Don’t you hear him?” she said. “He’s crying. We must go to him, somehow.”