Page:Traveler from Altruria, Howells, 1894.djvu/171

Rh "And you regard that as a great misfortune?" asked the Altrurian.

"Why, it's inevitable. There is nothing to bring us together, unless it's some happy accident, like the present. But we don't have a traveler from Altruria to exploit every day, and so we have no business to come into people's houses."

"You would have been welcome in ours, long ago, Mr. Twelvemough," said Mrs. Camp.

"But, excuse me!" said the Altrurian. "What you say really seems dreadful to me. Why, it is as if you were not the same race, or kind of men!"

"Yes," I answered. "It has sometimes seemed to me as if our big hotel there were a ship, anchored off some strange coast. The inhabitants come out with supplies, and carry on their barter with the ship's steward, and we sometimes see them over the side, but we never speak to them, or have anything to do with them. We sail away at the close of the season, and that is the end of it till next summer."

The Altrurian turned to Mrs. Camp. "And how do you look at it? How does it seem to you?"

"I don't believe we have thought about it very much; but now that Mr. Twelvemough has spoken of