at, it is criminal for us to keep them out of it. They're our
equals in every sense--I mean in that they supplement us, as we
supplement them. They've got what we haven't got and we've got what they
haven't got. They can't walk, but they can fly. We can't fly, but we can
walk. It is as though they compelled us, creatures of the earth, to live
in the air all the time. Oh, it's wrong. You'll see it some day."

"I never listened to such sophistry in my life," said Ralph in disgust.
"You'll be telling us next," he added sarcastically, "that we hadn't any
right to capture them."

"We hadn't," Frank replied promptly. "On reflection, I consider that
the second greatest crime of my existence. But that's done and can't
be wiped out. They own this island just as much as we do. They'd been
coming to it for months before we saw it. They ought to have every kind
of right and freedom and privilege on it that we, have."

"I'd like to hear," Addington said in the high, thin tone of his peevish
disgust, "the evidence that justifies you in saying that. What have they
ever done on this island to put them on an equality with us? Aren't they
our inferiors from every point of view, especially physically?"

"Certainly they are," agreed Honey, not peevishly but as one who
indorses, unnecessarily, a self-evident fact. "They've lived here on
Angel Island as long as we have. But they haven't made good yet, and we
have. Why, just imagine them working on the New Camp--playing tennis,
even."

"But we prevented all that," Frank protested. "We cut their wings.
Handicapped as they were by their small feet, they could do nothing."

"But," Honey ejaculated, "if they'd been our physical equals, they would
never have let us cut their wings."

"But we caught them with a trick," Frank said, "we put them in a
position in which they could not use their physical strength."

"Well, if they'd been our mental equals, they'd never let themselves get
caught like that."

"Well--but--but--but--" Frank sputtered. "Now you're arguing crazily.
You're going round in a circle."

"Oh, well," Honey exclaimed impatiently, "let's not argue any more. You
always go round in a circle. I hate argument. It never changes, anybody.
You never hear what the other fellow says. You always come out of it
with your convictions strengthened."

Frank made a gesture of despair. He drew a little book from his pocket
and began to read.

"There's one thing about them that certainly