man cannot kill a cat cruelly without being punished for it." The
Altrurian did not follow up his advantage, and I resolved not to be
outdone in magnanimity. "Come, I will own that you have the best of me on
those points. I must say you've trapped me very neatly, too; I can enjoy a
thing of that kind when it's well done, and I frankly knock under. But I
had in mind something altogether different when I spoke. I was thinking of
those idealists who want to bind us hand and foot and render us the slaves
of a state where the most intimate relations of life shall be penetrated
by legislation and the very hearthstone shall be a tablet of laws."

"Isn't marriage a rather intimate relation of life?" asked the Altrurian.
"And I understood that gentleman on the train to say that you had laws
against cruelty to children, and societies established to see them
enforced. You don't consider such laws an invasion of the home, do you, or
a violation of its immunities? I imagine," he went on, "that the
difference between your civilization and ours is only one of degree, after
all, and that America and Altruria are really one at heart."

I thought his compliment a bit hyperbolical, but I saw that it was
honestly meant, and as we Americans are first of all patriots, and vain
for our country before we are vain for ourselves, I was not proof against
the flattery it conveyed to me civically if not personally.

We were now drawing near the hotel, and I felt a certain glow of pleasure
in its gay effect on the pretty knoll where it stood. In its artless and
accidental architecture it was not unlike one of our immense coastwise
steamboats. The twilight had thickened to dusk, and the edifice was
brilliantly lighted with electrics, story above story, which streamed into
the gloom around like the lights of saloon and state-room. The corner of
wood making into the meadow hid the station; there was no other building