With which remark the Owl began a long series of observations, a mixture of political economy and his views on popular education, which Queen Mab found rather tedious. But they inspired her with a few verses, which she resolved, being the most philanthropic of fairies, and full of compassion for the dreary state of Great Britain in general, and of the rising generation in particular, to circulate among the Polynesian children as soon as she returned home. In this determination, unfortunately, she either forgot or ignored the fact that she had left her happy island a prey to the combined effects of annexation, civilisation, and evangelisation. But the verses ran thus: 'Upon my childhood's pallid morn No tropic summer smiled, In foreign lands I was not born, A happy, heathen child. Alas! but in a colder clime, A cultured clime, I dwell All in the foremost ranks of time, They say: I know it well. _You_ never learn geography, No grammar makes you wild, A book, a slate you never see, You happy, heathen child. I know in forest and in glade Your games are odd but gay, Think of the little British maid, Who has no place for play. When ended is the day's long joy, And you to rest have gone, Think of the little British boy, Who still is toiling on. The many things we learn about, We cannot understand. Ah, send your missionaries out To this benighted land! You blessed little foreigner, In weather fair and mild, Think of the tiny Britisher, Oh, happy heathen child. Ah! highly favoured Pagan, born In some far hemisphere, Pity the British child forlorn, And drop one sorrowing tear!' CHAPTER VI. JUSTICE AND THE NEW DEMOCRACY. 'They will soon be here, They are upon the road,' John Gilpin. 'I should like,' said Queen Mab one day, 'to go and see the City. Do you think it would be safe?' 'Yes,' said the Owl, 'if you fly out of the way of the smoke and the net of overhead wires, and take care not to be suffocated, and not to go near the Houses of Parliament, nor the Bank, nor St. Paul's, nor the Exchange, nor any great public building. And if you keep clear of all the bridges, and the railway stations, and Victoria Embankment, and go the other way whenever you see a person carrying a black bag.' 'Why?' inquired Queen Mab, a good deal mystified. 'Because all these places,' said the Owl, 'are in danger of being blown up. If you could get a Home Ruler to take you round now; but I'm afraid it wouldn't do, as he might put you into an explosion and leave you there, as likely as not. Besides, I was forgetting, you are immortal, aren't you? You _couldn't_ be blown up? If so, it is all right.' 'I don't suppose I could,' said Queen Mab a little doubtfully, 'but still I shouldn't care to try. What is it like?'