I told him, and he said: "Oh yes. Well, if we are going to restrict
immigration, I suppose we sha'n't see many more Altrurians, and we'd
better make the most of this one. Heigh?"

I do not know why this innocent pleasantry piqued me to say: "If I
understand the Altrurians, my dear fellow, nothing could induce them to
emigrate to America. As far as I can make out, they would regard it very
much as we should regard settling among the Eskimos."

"Is that so?" asked my new acquaintance, with perfect good temper. "Why?"

"Really, I can't say, and I don't know that I've explicit authority for my
statement."

"They are worse than the English used to be," he went on. "I didn't know
that there were any foreigners who looked at us in that light now. I
thought the war settled all that."

I sighed. "There are a good many things that the war didn't settle so
definitely as we've been used to thinking, I'm afraid. But, for that
matter, I fancy an Altrurian would regard the English as a little lower in
the scale of savagery than ourselves even."

"Is that so? Well, that's pretty good on the English, anyway," said my
companion, and he laughed with an easy satisfaction that I envied him.

"My dear!" his wife called to him from where she was sitting with the
Altrurian, "I wish you would go for my shawl. I begin to feel the air a
little."