"Let us get down, now, to facts. Let us examine what material we have, and draw deductions. "We were all agreed that we are here by the wisdom of God, and being here in that wise, are subject to his wishes in every way. Even old Go-by-the-ground--" he looks at the crocodile--"knows that." "Now, from what I 've heard from the angels who are higher up,--from them, let me tell you, that are absolutely on the inside,--God designs to make out of man the perfect being. He intends to combine your bravery--" he turns to the lion--"and your wisdom--" to the elephant--"with your beauty"; he is addressing the tiger. "What about me?" champs the crocodile. "Och, be damned to you! Man," he goes on didactically, "is essentially a creature of progress. He is the only being that builds houses--" From the background comes a shrill squeak from the beaver. "I mean houses with rooms--" There is the angry droning of bees. "What I mean is this: houses with fireplaces and pots and pans and what not. None of us will deny," he finishes lamely, "the enormous progress of man." "I deny it," the lion stormed. "Can I forget the great black armies of the South, the glistening men with the silver armlets and the short keen spears? Not even of me were they afraid, those! Their drums resounded through veldt and plain, They asked only of the earth what they needed for their good. And when they hunted they hunted fair. They matched their strength against our speed. And their knowledge against our knowledge. And at night they sang and they danced beneath the moon. "And now they are farm servants to the men who come overseas. They are not clean, as they once were. Their bodies that once were naked and glistening are caked with mud and covered with rags. And some of them are driven into the bowels of the earth, and the sunlight and the moonlight they were born to is kept from them. And they dig diamonds for men who are not satisfied with the luster of stars. And they who once fought me in the open with a spear now skulk with a gun." "I remember an India that was," the tiger snarled, "a land of rajahs and temples, of brown dancing girls and men who played little flutes. They grew the green sugar-cane, and cotton they might spin on great wooden wheels. And their smiths hammered brass into strange antique shapes. And they worshiped God with singing and dancing in cool temples. "What are the rajahs now, that once were the wonder of the earth, but little helot princes? And the ranees--the cinnamon-colored queens with the minute silver bells upon their bud-like toes--but despised native women? Are the bazaars filled with the quaint work of smiths? No, but with the meretricious trinkets of the West. And black-coated men seek to turn them from native immemorial gods. And the machine that throws pictures the mummers make, fights against the music and the dancing and the temple bells. "The beauty I stand for is passing away."