g.
We are so vulgar and violent, we have done you so many iniquities--
it is a shame we should be right after all.'

"And I, still enduring his harmlessness, asked him why he thought
that he and his people were right.

"And he answered: `We are right because we are bound where
men should be bound, and free where men should be free.
We are right because we doubt and destroy laws and customs--
but we do not doubt our own right to destroy them. For you live
by customs, but we live by creeds. Behold me! In my country I
am called Smip. My country is abandoned, my name is defiled,
because I pursue around the world what really belongs to me.
You are steadfast as the trees because you do not believe.
I am as fickle as the tempest because I do believe.
I do believe in my own house, which I shall find again.
And at the last remaineth the green lantern and the red post.'

"I said to him: `At the last remaineth only wisdom.'

"But even as I said the word he uttered a horrible shout,
and rushing forward disappeared among the trees.
I have not seen this man again nor any other man.
The virtues of the wise are of fine brass.
"Wong-Hi."

"The next letter I have to read," proceeded Arthur Inglewood, "will probably
make clear the nature of our client's curious but innocent experiment.
It is dated from a mountain village in California, and runs as follows:--

"Sir,--A person answering to the rather extraordinary
description required certainly went, some time ago,
over the high pass of the Sierras on which I live and
of which I am probably the sole stationary inhabitant.
I keep a rudimentary tavern, rather ruder than a hut,
on the very top of this specially steep and threatening pass.
My name is Louis Hara, and the very name may puzzle you
about my nationality. Well, it puzzles me a great deal.
When one has been for fifteen years without society it is hard
to have patriotism; and where there is not even a hamlet it
is difficult to invent a nation. My father was an Irishman of
the fiercest and most free-shooting of the old Californian kind.
My mother was a Spaniard, proud of descent from the old
Spanish families round San Francisco, yet accused for all that
of some admixture of Red Indian blood. I was well educated
and fond of music and books. But, like many other hybrids,
I was too good or too bad for the world; and after attempting
many things I was glad enough to