“Our whole body renews itself almost entirely, Nicolas. Your hair!” (Why the devil was he always talking of hair?) Your hair is not the same as it was last year, for example. It comes up again, less brown, and older, and in smaller numbers, whereas the automobile changes its parts at will, and get young again each time, with a new heart, and new brains which have more cunning than the original parts. “So that in a thousand years a motor-car, which never ceases to improve, will be as young as it is to-day, if it has been put to rights at the proper time, bit by bit. “And do not tell me that it will not be the same car, since all its parts shall have been replaced. If you made that objection, Nicolas, what would you think about man, who, during this race to death, that he calls life, is submitting to just as ridiculous transformations, but all in the nature of decay. “So that we must come to this strange conclusion--the man who dies old, is no longer he who was born. He who has just been born, and must succumb later on, will not die, at least, he will not die all at once, but progressively, scattered to the four winds of heaven in organic dust, during which long phase another being forms itself slowly in that place which is the place of the body. “This other one, whose birth is imperceptible, develops in each one of us, without our knowledge, as the first one crumbles away. It supplants this latter day by day, and it is modified continually by the death and renewal of myriads of cells, of which he is himself the sum total. He it is who will be seen to die. “I tell you, Nicolas, if the motor-car were by some miracle to become independent, man might pack his trunks. His era would be near its end. Compared with him, the motor-car would be queen of the world, as before him reigned the mammoth.” “Yes, but this sovereign queen would always be dependent upon the mind of man.” “That is a fine argument. Are we not the slaves of the animals, and even the plants which unceasingly rebuild our bodies with their flesh and their pulp?” My uncle was so pleased with his paradoxes, that he shouted them out, and fidgeted about in his seat, and sawed the air in a frenzy, as if he were seizing ideas in armfuls. “My dear nephew, what a splendid idea it was of yours to bring this car! It does buck me up wonderfully. I must learn how to drive the beast. I shall be the mahout of this fierce mammoth. Eh! Eh! Ah! Ha!” At the moment of this outburst of hilarity, I was just finishing my reasoning, and it was the outburst which caused me to make my attack--and to commit my imprudence. * * * * * “How amusing you are, uncle! Your gayety cheers me up. I recognize you again. Why aren’t you always like this, and why do you distrust me--me, who, on the contrary--deserve all your confidence?” “But,” said Lerne, “you know quite well I will give it to you when the time has come. I have quite decided on that.” “Why not at once, uncle?”