"
"I observe an absence of jewelry about your person," mentioned I, "was
it not the custom of your people to wear jewels?"
"Do you think that to wear rings around your toes and suspended from
your nose is a sensible thing to do?" inquired Arletta.
"No, no; decidedly not," answered I, "such are the customs of the
barbarians only, but our civilized people wear rings around their
fingers and in their ears."
"Indeed, and wherein lies the difference?" asked she, good naturedly. It
then struck me rather forcibly that there was no difference and that it
was just as ridiculous to wear rings from the ears and around the
fingers as it was to have them suspended from the nose and about the
toes. "But were there no diamonds in your country?" questioned I.
"Yes," replied Arletta, "there was a large pile of them in the national
museum which we looked upon as old junk--sort of relics of the savage
Apemen. When our children were shown these things and informed that a
king of an Apeman nation would gladly sacrifice the lives of a hundred
thousand of his subjects in an attempt to gain possession of them, or
that his subjects would murder their friends, brothers, wives or
children in an effort to secure some for themselves, it was impossible
for their youthful minds to fully understand why the Apeman should
become so ferocious and idiotic over such trifles. They naturally looked
upon your species as you would view a tribe of monkeys fighting amongst
themselves for the possession of a string of glass beads.
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