While I was questioning Professor Tan Trum and his family in regard to the underworld, they were equally eager in making inquiries as to my own land.
Naturally, they were anxious to know where I had come from, and how I had arrived; but, unfortunately, they already had their own theories on the subject, and nothing that I could say was able to change their views. Since they had decided that I had escaped from some cavern far below them, my story that I had come from the so-called "Overworld" met with incredulous smiles. Their attitude was about what our own would be if some stranger should assert that he came from the depths of the sea. "No use trying to deceive us!" they cried reprovingly. "The Overworld is not capable of supporting life!"
And then curiously they asked, "Are the people where you come from all colored like you?"
"Colored?" I flung back, a little irritated. "I haven't a speck of colored blood in my veins! I'm American white, every inch of me!"
"White?" they jeered, pointing to my face, with its rosy complexion. "What! you call that white? Why, you're pink!"
And loud was the laughter that convulsed the family group.
"If you're white, then what are we?" demanded Loa, insolently indicating her own snowy features.
I had nothing to say in reply. I could see that, by comparison with the chalk-faces, I was indeed the member of a colored race.
"My dear young man," consoled Professor Tan Trum, with the most unbearable superciliousness, "do not let the matter of your origin grieve you. We know that birth is not a matter of choice, and if nature has made you a member of an inferior race, at least it speaks well for you that you could rise to join us."
"But I didn't rise to join you!" I insisted. "I descended! I fell into your world by accident, through a fissure caused by the shocks of your warfare."