and the dedication of the tablet, and there was considerable delay incident to the delivery of a wireless message to the dignitary with the tablet of the Semitic inscription.  St. George wondered vaguely why, in a world of marvels, progress should not already have outstripped the need of any communication at all.  This reminded him of something at which the prince had hinted away off in another aeon, in another world, when St. George had first seen him, and there followed ten minutes of talk not to be forgotten.

“Would it be possible for you to tell me, your Highness,” St. George asked,—­and thereafter even a lover must have forgiven the brief apostasy of his thought—­“how it can be that you know the English?  How you are able to speak it here in Yaque?”

The motor moved forward as the procession passed, and struck into a magnificent country avenue bordered by trees, tall as elms and fragrant as acacias.

“I can tell you, yes,” said the prince, “but I warn you that you will not in the least understand me.  I dare say, however, that I may illustrate by something of which you know.  Do there chance to be, for example, any children in America who are regarded as prodigies of certain understanding?”

“You mean,” St. George asked, “children who can play on a musical instrument without knowing how they do it, and so on?”

“Quite so,” said the prince with interest.

“Many, your Highness,” affirmed St. George.  “I myself know a child of seven who can play most difficult piano compositions without ever having been taught, or knowing in the least how he does it.”

“Do you think of any one else?” asked the prince.

“Yes,” said St. George, “I know a little lad of about five, I should say, who can add enormous numbers and instantly give the accurate result.  And he has no idea how he does that, and no one has ever taught him to count above twelve.  Oh—­every one knows those cases, I fancy.”

“Has any one ever explained them, Mr. St. George?” asked the prince.

“How should they?” asked St. George simply.  “They are prodigies.”

“Quite so,” said the prince again.  “It is almost incredible that these instances seem to suggest to no one that there must be other ways to ‘learn’ music and mathematics—­and, therefore, everything else—­than those known to your civilization.  Let me assure you that such cases as these, far from being miracles and prodigies, are perfectly normal when once the principle is understood, as we of Yaque understand it.  It is the average intelligence among your people which is abnormal, inasmuch as it is unable to perform these functions which it was so clearly intended to exercise.”

“Do you mean,” asked St. George, “that we need not learn—­as we understand ’learn’?”

“Precisely,” said the prince simply.  “You are accustomed, I was told in New York, to say that there is ‘no royal road to learning.’  On the contrary, I say to you that the possibilities of these children are in every one.  But to my intense surprise I find that we of Yaque are the only ones in the world who understand how to use these possibilities.  Our system of education consists simply in mastering this principle.  After that, all knowledge—­all languages, for instance—­everything—­belongs to us.”