Her husband grinned. “You forgot to add, ‘of Oriental extraction.’” Catty said, “Ive never understood. Of course I don’t remember too well, but it seems to me Spanish people don’t have the same racial fanaticism. Certainly the Portuguese, French and Dutch don’t. Even the English are not quite so certain of Anglo-Saxon superiority. Only the Americans, in the United States and the Confederate States too, judge everything by color.” “The case of the Confederacy is reasonably simple,” I said. “There are about fifty million Confederate citizens and two hundred and fifty million subjects. If white supremacy wasnt the cornerstone of Southron policy a visitor couldnt tell the ruling class at a glance. Even as it is he sometimes has a hard time, what with sunburn. It’s more complicated here. Remember, we lost a war, the most important war in our history, which was not unconnected with skin color.” “In Japan,” said Hiro, “the lighter colored people, the Ainu, used to be looked down on. Just as the Christians were once driven underground at exactly the same time they themselves drove the Jews underground in Spain and Portugal.” “The Jews,” murmured Catty vaguely; “are there still Jews?” “Oh yes,” I said. “Several millions in Uganda-Eretz which the British made a self-governing dominion back in 1933 under the first Labour cabinet. And numbers most everywhere else, except in the German Union since the massacres of 1905-1913.” “Which were much more thorough than the anti-Oriental massacres in the United States,” supplied Hiro. “Much more thorough,” I agreed. “After all, scattered handfuls of Asians were left alive here.” “My parents and Kimi’s grandparents among them. How lucky they were to be American Japanese instead of European Jews.” “There are Jews in the United States,” announced Kimi. “I met one once. She was a theosophist and told me I ought to learn the wisdom of the East.” “Very few of them. There were about two hundred thousand at the close of the War of Southron Independence on both sides of the border. After the election of 1872, General Grant’s Order Number Ten, expelling all Jews from the Department of the Missouri, which had been rescinded immediately by President Lincoln, was retroactively re-enacted by President Butler, in spite of the fact that the United States no longer controlled that territory. Henceforth Jews were treated like all other colored peoples, Negroes, Orientals, Indians and South Sea Islanders: as undesirables to be bribed to leave or to be driven out of the country.” “This is very dull stuff,” said Hiro. “Let me tell you about a hydrogen reaction—” “No, please,” begged Catty. “Let me listen to Hodge.” “Good heavens,” exclaimed Kimi, “when do you ever do anything else? I’d think you’d be tired by now.” “She will marry him one of these days,” predicted Hiro; “then the poor fellow will never be allowed to disguise a lecture as a conversation again.”