Brimmer, fondly regarding the biscuit.

"Thank you, Missie," beamed the Senor; "but to return: our Lascar
friends, Mrs. Markham, belong to an earlier Asiatic type of civilization
already decayed or relapsed to barbarism, while the aborigines of the
New World now existing have never known it--or, like the Aztecs, have
perished with it. The modern North American aborigine has not yet got
beyond the tribal condition; mingled with Caucasian blood as he is in
Mexico and Central America, he is perfectly capable of self-government."

"Then why has he never obtained it?" asked Mrs. Markham.

"He has always been oppressed and kept down by colonists of the Latin
races; he has been little better than a slave to his oppressor for the
last two centuries," said Senor Perkins, with a slight darkening of his
soft eyes.

"Injins is pizen," whispered Mr. Winslow to Miss Keene.

"Who would be free, you know, the poet says, ought themselves to light
out from the shoulder, and all that sort of thing," suggested Crosby,
with cheerful vagueness.

"True; but a little assistance and encouragement from mankind generally
would help them," continued the Senor. "Ah! my dear Mrs. Markham,
if they could even count on the intelligent sympathy of women like
yourself, their independence would be assured. And think what a proud
privilege to have contributed to such a result, to have assisted at the
birth of the ideal American Republic, for such it would be--a Republic
of one blood, one faith, one history."