'
"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.
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