Daniel, belatedly coming alive to the fact that he was being personally addressed in an as-yet-unidentified language by the King, got only a single word: Rüben . What did it mean? To rub something? Perhaps the King was remarking that the custodians of the Queen’s House had rubbed the windows very clean? Daniel was just beginning to nod when the King helpfully said "navet." Daniel realized in some horror that he’d switched to French to make himself better understood—but Daniel still didn’t understand! Was he talking about the Navy? That would be reasonable in a way, since the activities of the Royal Observatory were of great importance to the Navy. Daniel kept nodding. Finally Bothmar intervened—Baron von Bothmar, who’d been the Hanoverian ambassador to the Court of St. James back in the days when Hanover and England had been different countries. "His majesty hates to see good land go to waste," Bothmar translated, "and has been eyeing yonder open space all morning, wondering how it might be put to some practical use; the difficulty being that it inclines toward the north and does not, in consequence, receive good sunlight. Knowing that you, Dr. Waterhouse, are a man of great Natural-philosophick acumen, his majesty asks you whether you are in agreement with him in thinking that, in the springtime, one might, with some hope of success, plant on that ground Rüben—navets —turnips."