“_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.”
And I said to myself “That’s very strange! I quite thought it was _Lady Muriel_ talking to me. Why, it’s _Sylvie_ all the while!” And I made another great effort to say something that should have some meaning in it. “Is it about the potato?”