effected in a certain reservoir (built with a classic regard for the
dignity of its use as a link with unspoken forces) St. George
listened, and said over with attention the name of the substance
acted upon by emanations--and wondered if Olivia were not afraid of
it. So it was all through the exhibition of more wonders scientific
and economic than any one has dreamed since every one became a
victim of the world's habit of being afraid to dream. Although it is
true that when St. George chanced to observe that there were about
Med few farms of tilled ground, the prince's reply did startle him
into absorbed attention:

"You are referring to agriculture?" Prince Tabnit said after a
moment's thought. "I know the word from old parchments brought from
Phoenicia by our ancestors. But I did not know that the art is in
practice anywhere in the world. Do you mean to assure me," cried the
prince suddenly, "that the vegetables which I ate in America were
raised by what is known as 'tilling the soil'?"

"How else, your Highness?" doubted St. George, wondering if he were
responsible for the fading mentality of the prince.

Prince Tabnit looked away toward the splendour of some new thought.

"How beautiful," he said, "to subsist on the sun and the dust.
Beautiful and lost, like the dreams of Mitylene. But I feel as if I
were reading in Genesis," he declared. "Is it possible that in this
'age of science' of yours it has not occurred to your people that if
plants grow by slowly extracting their own elements from the soil,
those elements artificially extracted and applied to the seed will
render growth and fruitage almost instantaneous?"

"At all events we've speculated about it," St. George hastened to
impart with pride, "just as we do about telephones that will let
people see one another when they talk. But nearly every one smiles
at both."

"Don't smile," the prince warned him. "Yaque has perfected both
those inventions only since she ceased to smile at their
probability. Nothing can be simpler than instantaneous vegetation.
Any Egyptian juggler can produce it by using certain acids. We have
improved the process until our fruits and vegetables are produced as
they are needed, from hour to hour. This was one of the so-called
secrets of the ancient Phoenicians--has it never occurred to you as
important that the Phoenician name for Dionysos, the god of
wine-growers, was lost?"

Mentally St. George added another barrel to the ca