we should find there was a Whale
on the premises."

"And so there IS a whale on the premises for all you know,"
asseverated Smith, striking the table with passion.
"I bet you've never examined the premises! I bet you've
never been round at the back as I was this morning--
for I found the very thing you say could only grow on a tree.
There's an old sort of square tent up against the dustbin;
it's got three holes in the canvas, and a pole's broken,
so it's not much good as a tent, but as a Canopy--" And his
voice quite failed him to express its shining adequacy;
then he went on with controversial eagerness: "You see I
take every challenge as you make it. I believe every blessed
thing you say couldn't be here has been here all the time.
You say you want a whale washed up for oil. Why, there's oil
in that cruet-stand at your elbow; and I don't believe
anybody has touched it or thought of it for years.
And as for your gold crown, we're none of us wealthy here,
but we could collect enough ten-shilling bits from our own
pockets to string round a man's head for half an hour;
or one of Miss Hunt's gold bangles is nearly big enough to--"

The good-humoured Rosamund was almost choking with laughter.
"All is not gold that glitters," she said, "and besides--"

"What a mistake that is!" cried Innocent Smith,
leaping up in great excitement. "All is gold that glitters--
especially now we are a Sovereign State. What's the good
of a Sovereign State if you can't define a sovereign?
We can make anything a precious metal, as men could in the morning
of the world. They didn't choose gold because it was rare;
your scientists can tell you twenty sorts of slime much rarer.
They chose gold because it was bright--because it was
a hard thing to find, but pretty when you've found it.
You can't fight with golden swords or eat golden biscuits;
you can only look at it--and you can look at it out here."

With one of his incalculable motions he sprang back and burst open
the doors into the garden. At the same time also, with one of his
gestures that never seemed at the instant so unconventional as they were,
he stretched out his hand to Mary Gray, and led her out on to the lawn
as if for a dance.

The French windows, thus flung open, let in an evening even lovelier than that
of the day before. The west was swimming with sanguine colours, and a sort
of sleepy flame lay along the lawn. The twisted shadows of the one or two
garden tree