“We’re nothing of the sort, and if you’d only let all this nonsense out of your head and take more exercise, and study the Bible now and again for a change from Huxley and all the rest of them----” “A puny envelope, holding nothing of worth. If a million million years were past, and I had come then----” “If I didn’t know you,” she said, “I might be cross. Surely your wife counts? At all events man is the greatest of created things--the first thing Nature ever made that knew it was alive--her masterpiece. And nothing greater than man will ever tread this planet. Mark my words, and read the Bible. Now drink your tea, and don’t talk nonsense about puny envelopes. You’re a well-nourished, good-looking and learned man, with a thousand a year. And if Nature ever made anybody better and wiser and more sensible--as a rule--I should like to see him.” Professor Jebbway sighed and took his tea. “Something better is hid in Time,” he said: “nothing better than you, my dear partner, that is impossible; but something better far, wiser far than your humble servant.” IV Another round string of million years and we reach the Latest Thing. The Latest Thing reclined in its dwelling-house of glass, and by sheer mental effort communicated with other things afar off and exchanged ideas with them--as we to-day by wireless telegraphy. The Latest Thing was pliable and pink, with a head like an overgrown vegetable-marrow. His brain towered up into a cranial cavity lifted three feet above his face. His eyes twinkled like diamonds. He breathed through gills, and had a mouth merely rudimentary, for he lived by smell. Upon his back were wings of gauze; and when he moved, these became invisible, and he floated gently through the air. The Latest Thing’s wife wafted herself in from somewhere, and they communicated by their brains and eyes. “Oh, if Nature would only get on a little,” said the Latest Thing. “I am impatient and she is so slow. Not one of our children appear to give the least sign or evidence of advance and improvement.” “I should hope not, indeed!” telegraphed back his wife. “The females are exactly like me, and the males are exactly like you--bless the little ducks! ‘Improvement!’ They are the most perfect young things you’ll find, seek where you may.” “Yet I hoped that they----” “Your old craze. I tell you we are the high-water mark, the crest of the wave, the ultimate best, the triumph of Creation--Perfection!” But the Latest Thing shook his huge head. “I doubt it,” he flashed back to her. THE BIOGRAPHY OF PETER PARKINSON