offended, as had a majority of all Hili-lite youths, past and present;
but he had not offended for a third time), spoke as follows:

"'Say for us to His Majesty, and to the Honorable Councillors, that we,
the so-called Exiles of Olympus, request our release, and also
permission to return to Hili-li. In making this request we are not
willing to say that we have ever in the past done to the State any
serious wrong. We have, however, reached a time of life when we are
willing to abjure the delights and benefits of wrestling, of
ground-ball, of bat-ball, and of other athletic sports. We are willing
to promise not again to visit the savages of surrounding islands--a rare
sport. We regret the broken neck of young Selimus, which occurred during
a game of ground-ball some three years ago, and we regret the accidental
breaking of a few other bones; but we think these accidents no more
deplorable than the death of Testube the scholar, or the blinding of the
chemist, Amurosus--accidents which occurred whilst they were in their
own laboratories, performing experiments of no material benefit, so far
as we know, to the people of Hili-li. I might also allude to the
lamentable death of Solarsistus, who some four years ago fell from his
tower whilst observing the noted shower of falling meteors. And we ask
these wise men--particularly Masusaelili, whose mind is as cultivated as
his body is neglected--what they think would become of the people of
Hili-li if, at some future time, even so few as one thousand such men as
these two strangers standing there should make war upon us, assuming
that the decrees of those in power shall have been for a single
generation faithfully observed. When the barbarian of the north overcame
our ancestors in ancient Rome, it was only after indolent habits had
sapped the physical power of the patrician; and when we here repelled
with ease many times our number of barbarians, it was whilst yet our
race was hardy from its combat with adverse forces in this then new