At this moment we heard once more the herald’s “O yes! O yes!” outside in the street proclaiming the Resolution of the Council. Young though he was, my grandson⁠—who was unusually intelligent for his age, and bred up in perfect reverence for the authority of the Circles⁠—took in the situation with an acuteness for which I was quite unprepared. He remained silent till the last words of the Proclamation had died away, and then, bursting into tears, “Dear Grandpapa,” he said, “that was only my fun, and of course I meant nothing at all by it; and we did not know anything then about the new law; and I don’t think I said anything about the Third Dimension; and I am sure I did not say one word about ‘Upward, not Northward,’ for that would be such nonsense, you know. How could a thing move Upward, and not Northward? Upward and not Northward! Even if I were a baby, I could not be so absurd as that. How silly it is! Ha! ha! ha!”