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 the only way will be to deport the entire population, and colonise the island with sober English.’

‘Unfortunately, sobriety is just the point in which your colonists might fail,’ interposed Hilda.

‘Well, it’ll be a difficult and sad business, I know,’ pursued her mother, ‘but it’ll be for the best in the long run, and I hope you will bring the matter before Parliament, Hum, at the first opportunity.’

‘I should be afraid of Parliament framing a resolution to the effect that I should be advised to withdraw to that familiar satellite orb whence I appear to have strayed.’

‘Quite right, papa,’ remarked Friga, ‘that would only be fitting.

Friga gave out this impromptu version of the old ditty, not humorously, but in a bold, loud, and strange voice which made her father and her sister start and look at her. But Lady Humnoddie was too full of her own prepossessions to heed it.

‘Don’t talk nonsense, Hum,’ she replied, to her husband’s last observation. ‘You know very well that if you had the will of united England at your back, you could carry the measure through Parliament.’

‘Ay, if. I could do many wonders with if. United England! Save the mark!’

‘Well, if you don’t, someone else must,’ she said. ‘The country, I’m very sure, will stand no more nonsense, and it’ll have to be put a stop to. More tea, Hum?’

Brought up amid surroundings such as hers, a spoilt child