As his trial was at present inconvenient to the
Government, the postponement was allowed on these grounds.
In the meantime, the public agitation was subsiding. The nation
reconciled itself to the revolution in its fortunes. The ci-devant
millionaires were busied with retrenchment; the Government engaged in
sweeping in as many pink shells as were lying about the country; the
mechanics contrived to live upon chalk and sea-weed; and as the
Aboriginal would not give his corn away gratis, the Vraibleusians
determined to give up bread. The intellectual part of the nation were
intently interested in discovering the cause of the National Distress.
One of the philosophers said that it might all be traced to the effects
of a war in which the Vraibleusians had engaged about a century before.
Another showed that it was altogether clearly ascribable to the
pernicious custom of issuing pink shells; but if, instead of this mode
of representing wealth, they had had recourse to blue shells, the nation
would now have advanced to a state of prosperity which it had never yet
reached.
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