is his similarity to us, and the second, his
dissimilarity; and in these two factors alone rests our attitude towards
him. It has been thus since the beginning of the world--if he is too
dissimilar, our reaction is one of dislike, and I suppose, far enough
down the scale of civilization, we would immediately try to kill him. If
he has enough in common with ourselves we at once feel warm and
friendly, and invite him to our tribal feasts.

Perhaps this was the way it was between myself and Edith Nealman. She
wasn't infinitely set apart from me--some one rich and experienced and
free of all the problems that made up my life. Nealman's niece meant
something far different than Nealman's daughter--if indeed the man had a
daughter. She was his secretary, she said--a paid worker even as I was.
She had come to see me on business--and no wonder I was anticipatory and
elated as I hadn't been for years!

"I'm glad to know you, Miss----" I began. For of course I didn't know
her name, then.

"Miss Nealman," she told me, easily. "Now I'll tell you what my uncle
wants. He heard about you, from Mr. Todd."

I nodded. Mr. Todd had brought me out from the village and had helped me
with some work I was doing for my university, in a northern state.

"He was trying to get Mr. Todd to help him, but he was busy and couldn't
do it," the girl went on. "But he said to get Ned Killdare--that you
could do it as well as he could. He said no one knew the country
immediately about here any better than you--that though you'd only been
here a month or two you had been all over it, and that you knew the
habits of the turkeys and quail, and the best fishing grounds, better
than any one else in the country."

I nodded in assent. Of course I knew these things: on a zoological
excursion for the university they were simply my business. But as yet I
couldn't guess how this information was to be of use to Grover Nealman.

"Now this is what my uncle wants," the girl went on. "He's going to have
a big shoot and fish for some of his man friends--they are coming down
in about two weeks. They'll want to fish in the Ochakee River and in the
lagoon, and hunt quail and turkey, and my uncle wants to know if--if he
can possibly--hire you as guide."

I liked her for her hesitancy, the uncertainty with which she spoke.
Her voice had nothing of that calm superiority that is so often heard
in the offering of humble employment. She was plainly considering my
dignity-