“The difficulty with me is,” continued the banker, “that he has rendered Altruria incredible. I have no doubt that he is an Altrurian, but I doubt very much if he comes from anywhere in particular, and I find this quite a blow, for we had got Altruria nicely located on the map, and were beginning to get accounts of it in the newspapers.”
“Yes, that is just exactly the way I feel about it,” sighed Mrs. Makely. “But still, don’t you think there ought to have been a vote of thanks, Mr. Bullion?”
“Why, certainly. The fellow was immensely amusing, and you must have got a lot of money by him. It was an oversight not to make him a formal acknowledgment of some kind. If we offered him money, he would have to leave it all behind him here when he went home to Altruria.”
“Just as we do when we go to heaven,” I suggested; the banker did not answer, and I instantly felt that in the presence of the minister my remark was out of taste.
“Well, then, don’t you think,” said Mrs. Makely, who had a leathery insensibility to everything but the purpose possessing her, “that we ought at least to go and say something to him personally?”
“Yes, I think we ought,” said the banker, and we all walked up to where the Altrurian stood, still thickly surrounded by the lower classes, who were shaking hands with him and getting in a word with him now and then.
One of the construction gang said, carelessly: “No all-rail route to Altruria, I suppose?”
“No,” answered Homos, “it’s a far sea voyage.”
“Well, I shouldn’t mind working my passage, if you think they’d let me stay after I got there.”
“Ah, you mustn’t go to Altruria. You must let Altruria come to you” returned Homos, with that confounded smile of his that always won my heart.