Suddenly upon a steaming mud-flat there appeared a little lobster-like creature of many joints, large eyes, and various feelers arranged like whiskers around his jaws. He was twenty inches in length and carried himself with conscious dignity, albeit mud knocks the dignity out of almost anything but a trilobite. But this trilobite, for such he was, surveyed that Cambrian noon pensively, curled his whiskers with thought, and wriggled his shining joints in the sun. Presently a hen trilobite appeared and squatted beside him placidly. “When I survey this spectacle,” said the trilobite, “when I reflect that the world is empty but for us, I am often tempted to wonder.” He rolled his goggle eyes towards the zenith. “Wonder? What at?” asked his lady. “Surely, as the lord of creation, you have a right to everything here? You’re the most wonderful thing in the mud, after all; you can walk about and talk; in fact, you’re alive--a live creature--Nature’s masterpiece.” “It would be easy and pleasant to think so,” mused the trilobite, “but sometimes, in rare fits of modesty, I almost fancy that I am not the best that Nature can do. I even picture something bigger, better, more beautiful than a trilobite. It may be morbid, but I do.” “This is nonsense and stuff, my dear. You’re fishing for compliments? Bigger? Good heavens! you’re twenty inches long; isn’t that big enough for anybody? Better? Well, you’re a good husband and father; what better could any trilobite be? And as to beauty, I shouldn’t have married you if you had not been about the handsomest gentleman trilobite that ever sat and curled his whiskers. Nature never made anything better than a trilobite. Why? Because she can’t. Can you picture anything different? Can you imagine any creature with more convenient limbs, more exquisite joints, more perfect claws, better eyesight, better senses, better manners, or more self-respecting? You know you can’t.” “I actually cannot picture the creature, but I can picture the possibility of such a creature.” “Twaddle!” said Mrs. Trilobite. “We’re the best and last, so there’s an end of it. The world was made for us.” She had the final word, very properly, and the trilobite shrugged his shoulders and waddled off to his family. Still he doubted. II Some millions of millions of years having passed by, we find ourselves, upon a bright afternoon of Mesozoic times, in the company of that genial and gigantic Deinosaur, Brontosaurus Excelsus. The monster, despite pleasant climatic conditions, was ill at ease. He sat upon his haunches, swayed his enormous neck to the right and left, and listlessly chewed off the heads of six lofty palm-trees. There was a crash--a boiling, seething explosion as of a torpedo in the river at his feet--and forth came the Deinosaur’s bride, an enormous being, much like himself, though somewhat smaller. “Ah, my little dear, back again?” he exclaimed, and, smashing off the palm-trees like cabbage-stumps, sank down beside her.