"You recollect the Burmese," said he. "The American is like the Burman in one way. He won't do heavy manual labour. He knows too much. Consequently he imports the alien to be his hands--just as the Burman gets hold of the Madrassi. If he shuts down all labour immigration he will have to fill up his own dams, cut his cuttings and pile his own embankments. The American citizen won't like that. He is racially unfit to be a labourer in _muttee_. He can invent, buy, sell and design, but he cannot waste his time on earth-works. _Iswaste_, this great people will resume contract labour immigration the minute they find the aliens in their midst are not sufficient for the jobs in hand. If the alien gives them trouble they will shoot him." "Yes, they will shoot him," I said, remembering how only two days before some Hungarians employed on a line near Musquash had seen fit to strike and to roll down rocks on labourers hired to take their places, an amusement which caused the sheriff to open fire with a revolver and wound or kill (it really does not much matter which) two or three of them. Only a man who earns ten pence a day in sunny Italy knows how to howl for as many shillings in America. The composition of the crowd in the cars began to attract my attention. There were very many women and a few clergymen. Where you shall find these two together, there also shall be a fad, a hobby, a theory, or a mission. "These people are going to Chautauqua," said the Professor. "It's a sort of open-air college--they call it--but you'll understand things better when you arrive." A grim twinkle in the back of his eye awakened all my fears. "Can you get anything to drink there?" "No." "Are you allowed to smoke?" "Ye-es, in certain places." "Are we staying there over Sunday?" "_No._" This very emphatically.