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.