“An’ little Mister Buxley, be way of variashun,” cried Teddy Malone.
“An’ Mistress Lynch, for a change,” growled Jabez Jenkins.
“Hear, hear! No, no! Hurrah! Nonsense! Howld yer tongue! Be serious!”—gradually drowned in a confusion of tongues with a yelling accompaniment from infantry in the outer circle.
It was finally agreed, however, that the arrangements for the coronation should be left entirely to a committee composed of Dominick, Dr Marsh, Joe Binney, and Hugh Morris—Joe being put forward as representing the agricultural interest, and Hugh the malcontents. Teddy Malone was added to make an odd number, “for there’s luck in odd numbers,” as he himself remarked on accepting office.
Immediately after the general meeting broke up, these five retired to the privacy of a neighbouring palm grove, where, seated on a verdant and flowering bank, they proceeded calmly to discuss details.
“You see, my friends,” said Dominick, “it must be our most earnest endeavour to carry out this important matter in a serious and business-like manner. Already there is too much of a spirit of levity among the people, who seem to look at the whole affair as a sort of game or joke, playing, as it were, at national life, whereas we actually are an independent nation—”
“A small wan, av coorse,” murmured Malone.
“Yes, a small one, but not the less real on that account, so that we are entitled to manage our own affairs, arrange our own government, and, generally, to act according to our united will. These islands and their surroundings are unknown—at least they are not put down on any chart; I believe we have discovered them. There are no inhabitants to set up a counter claim; therefore, being entitled to act according to our will, our appointment of a queen to rule us—under limited powers, to be hereafter well considered and clearly written down—is a reality; not a mere play or semi-jest to be undone lightly when the fancy takes us. That being so, we must go to work with gravity and earnestness of purpose.”
Teddy Malone, who was an impressionable creature, here became so solemnised that his lengthening visage and seriously wrinkled brow rendered gravity—especially on the part of Dr Marsh—almost impossible.
Overcoming his feelings with a powerful effort the doctor assented to what Dominick said, and suggested that some mild sort of ceremonial should be devised for the coronation, in order to impress the beholders as well as to mark the event.