“So you’re come at last!” the Emperor sulkily remarked, as the Professor and the children took their places. It was evident that he was very much out of temper: and we were not long in learning the cause of this. He did not consider the preparations, made for the Imperial party, to be such as suited their rank. “A common mahogany table!” he growled, pointing to it contemptuously with his thumb. “Why wasn’t it made of gold, I should like to know?”
“It would have taken a very long—” the Professor began, but the Emperor cut the sentence short.
“Then the cake! Ordinary plum! Why wasn’t it made of—of—” He broke off again. “Then the wine! Merely old Madeira! Why wasn’t it—? Then this chair! That’s worst of all. Why wasn’t it a throne? One might excuse the other omissions, but I can’t get over the chair!”
“What I can’t get over,” said the Empress, in eager sympathy with her angry husband, “is the table!”
“Pooh!” said the Emperor.
“It is much to be regretted!” the Professor mildly replied, as soon as he had a chance of speaking. After a moment’s thought he strengthened the remark. “Everything,” he said, addressing Society in general, “is very much to be regretted!”
A murmur of “Hear, hear!” rose from the crowded Saloon.
There was a rather awkward pause: the Professor evidently didn’t know how to begin. The Empress leant forwards, and whispered to him. “A few jokes, you know, Professor—just to put people at their ease!”
“True, true, Madam!” the Professor meekly replied. “This little boy—”
“Please don’t make any jokes about me!” Bruno exclaimed, his eyes filling with tears.
“I won’t if you’d rather I didn’t,” said the kindhearted Professor. “It was only something about a Ship’s Buoy: a harmless pun—but it doesn’t matter.” Here he turned to the crowd and addressed them in a loud voice. “Learn your A’s!” he shouted. “Your B’s! Your C’s! And your D’s! Then you’ll be at your ease!”
There was a roar of laughter from all the assembly, and then a great deal of confused whispering. “What was it he said? Something about bees, I fancy—.”
The Empress smiled in her meaningless way, and fanned herself. The poor Professor looked at her timidly: he was clearly at his wits’ end again, and hoping for another hint. The Empress whispered again.
“Some spinach, you know, Professor, as a surprise.”
The Professor beckoned to the Head-Cook, and said something to him in a low voice. Then the Head-Cook left the room, followed by all the other cooks.
“It’s difficult to get things started,” the Professor remarked to Bruno. “When once we get started, it’ll go on all right, you’ll see.”
“If oo want to startle people,” said Bruno, “oo should put live frogs on their backs.”
Here the cooks all came in again, in a procession, the Head-Cook coming last and carrying something, which the others tried to hide by waving flags all round it. “Nothing but flags, Your Imperial Highness! Nothing but flags!” he kept repeating, as he set it before her. Then all the flags were dropped in a moment, as the Head-Cook raised the cover from an enormous dish.
“What is it?” the Empress said faintly, as she put her spyglass to her eye. “Why, it’s Spinach, I declare!”
“Her Imperial Highness is surprised,” the Professor explained to the attendants: and some of them clapped their hands. The Head-Cook made a low bow, and in doing so dropped a spoon on the table, as if by accident, just within reach of the Empress, who looked the other way and pretended not to see it.
“I am surprised!” the Empress said to Bruno. “Aren’t you?”
“Not a bit,” said Bruno. “I heard—” but Sylvie put her hand over his mouth, and spoke for him. “He’s rather tired, I think. He wants the Lecture to begin.”
“I want the supper to begin,” Bruno corrected her.
The Empress took up the spoon in an absent manner, and tried to balance it across the back of her hand, and in doing this she dropped it into the dish: and, when she took it out again, it was full of spinach. “How curious!” she said, and put it into her mouth. “It tastes just like real spinach! I thought it was an imitation—but I do believe it’s real!” And she took another spoonful.
“It won’t be real much longer,” said Bruno.
But the Empress had had enough spinach by this time, and somehow—I failed to notice the exact process—we all found ourselves in the Pavilion, and the Professor in the act of beginning the long-expected Lecture.
XXI
The Professor’s Lecture
“In Science—in fact, in most things—it is usually best to begin at the beginning. In some things, of course, it’s better to begin at the other end. For instance, if you wanted to paint a dog green, it might be best to begin with the tail, as it doesn’t bite at that end. And so—”
“May I help oo?” Bruno interrupted.
“Help me to do what?” said the puzzled Professor, looking up for a moment, but keeping his finger on the book he was reading from, so as not to lose his place.
“To paint a dog green!” cried Bruno. “Oo can begin wiz its mouf, and I’ll—”
“No, no!” said the Professor. “We haven’t got to the Experiments yet. And so,” returning to his notebook, “I’ll give you the Axioms of Science. After that I shall exhibit some Specimens. Then I shall explain a Process or two. And I shall conclude with a few Experiments. An Axiom, you know, is a thing that you accept without contradiction. For instance, if I were to say ‘Here we are!’, that would be accepted without any contradiction, and it’s a nice sort of remark to begin a conversation with. So it would be an Axiom. Or again, supposing I were to say ‘Here we are not!’ that would
