_Goblin_. "You seek them in vain, for they are all dead," as said the survivors in a tragedy where the principal personages died in the last act. _Gnome_. What do you mean? _Goblin_. I mean that men are all dead, and the race is lost. _Gnome_. My word! what news for the papers! But how is it they have not already mentioned it? _Goblin_. Stupid. Do you not see that if there are no men there will be no more newspapers? _Gnome_. Yes, that is true. But how shall we know in future the news of the world? _Goblin_. News! what news? That the sun rises and sets? That it is hot or cold? That here or there it has rained or snowed, or been windy? Since men disappeared, Fortune has unbandaged her eyes, put on spectacles, and attached her wheel to a pivot. She sits with arms crossed, watching the world go round without troubling herself in the least as to its affairs. There are no more kingdoms nor empires to swell themselves, and burst like bubbles, for they have all vanished. There is no more war; and the years are as like one another as two peas. _Gnome_. No one will know the day of the month, since there will be no more calendars printed! _Goblin_. What a misfortune! Nevertheless, the moon will continue her course. _Gnome_. And the days of the week will be nameless! _Goblin_. What does it matter? Do you think they will not come unless you call them? Or, that once passed, they will return if you call out their names? _Gnome_. And no one will take any count of the years! _Goblin_. We shall be able to say we are young when we are old; and we shall forget our cares when we cannot fix their anniversary. Besides, when we are very old, we shall not know it, nor be expecting death daily. _Gnome_. But how is it these rogues have disappeared? _Goblin_. Some killed themselves with fighting; others were drowned in the sea. Some ate each other. Not a few committed suicide. Some died of ennui in idleness; and some turned their brains with study. Debauch, and a thousand other excesses, put an end to many more. In short, they have arrived at their end, by endeavouring, as long as they lived, to violate the laws of nature, and to go contrary to their welfare. _Gnome_. Still, I do not understand how an entire race of animals can become extinct without leaving any trace behind it. _Goblin_. You who are a specialist in geology ought to know that the circumstance is not a new one, and that many kinds of animals lived anciently, which to-day are nowhere to be found except in the remains of a few petrified bones. Moreover, these poor creatures employed none of the means used by men for their destruction. _Gnome_. It may be so. I should dearly like to resuscitate one or two of the rascals, just to know what they would think when they saw all going on as before, in spite of the disappearance of the human race. Would they then imagine that everything was made and maintained solely for them?