very glad indeed to meet my friends, and I led the way toward a little
group at the corner of the piazza. They were men whom I particularly
liked, for one reason or another; they were intelligent and open-minded,
and they were thoroughly American. One was a banker; another was a
minister; there was a lawyer, and there was a doctor; there was a
professor of political economy in one of our colleges; and there was a
retired manufacturer--I do not know what he used to manufacture: cotton or
iron, or something like that. They all rose politely as I came up with my
Altrurian, and I fancied in them a sensation of expectancy created by the
rumor of his eccentric behavior which must have spread through the hotel.
But they controlled this if they had it, and I could see, as the light
fell upon his face from a spray of electrics on the nearest pillar, that
sort of liking kindle in theirs which I had felt myself at first sight of
him.

I said, "Gentlemen, I wish to introduce my friend, Mr. Homos," and then I
presented them severally to him by name. We all sat down, and I explained:
"Mr. Homos is from Altruria. He is visiting our country for the first
time, and is greatly interested in the working of our institutions. He has
been asking me some rather hard questions about certain phases of our
civilization; and the fact is that I have launched him upon you because I
don't feel quite able to cope with him."

They all laughed civilly at this sally of mine, but the professor asked,
with a sarcasm that I thought I hardly merited, "What point in our polity
can be obscure to the author of 'Glove and Gauntlet' and 'Airs and
Graces'?"

They all laughed again, not so civilly, I felt, and then the banker asked
my friend: "Is it long since you left Altruria?"