“And at this, that giant from whom the light of reason was withheld threw out his mighty arms and asked me to forgive him.  And when I asked him for what he should be forgiven he answered:  `For being right.’

“`Your idols and emperors are so old and wise and satisfying,’ he cried, `it is a shame that they should be wrong.  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 get a sufficient though a lonely living in this little cabaret in the mountains.  In my solitude I fell into many of the ways of a savage.  Like