It is doubtless true that the speechless, unspeakable Mule, seldom troubles himself about his heirs, executors or administrators. Why should he? He is a monstrosity, physical and metaphysical; the _ne plus ultra_, the "nothing beyond" of his species. Besides, he has little of value to bequeath; he is a disinherited prodigal, with champagne tastes and a root beer revenue, digesting his diet of wild oats; his assets would scarcely overbalance those of a disbanded Uncle Tom troupe--one blood hound, one death-bed, and two cakes of imitation ice. Moreover, truth to tell, he is probably in no special haste to die. This amiable weakness is shared by certain of our own race. A hypercritical Boston lady, mistress of the mysteries of nine idioms and five kinds of angel cake, was heard to declare that she would rather not die at all than be buried anywhere outside Mount Auburn. The speechless, discredited Mule, born old, wise and fuzzy, has little to thank his paternal ancestors for, save phenomenal ears that not even a lion's skin can hide, as witness AEsop, and a phenomenal voice that no lion's roar can drown. Both these heritages were preordained for grand service in an epoch when war should gnash loud her iron fangs, and shake her crest of bristling bayonets. Vouchsafe unto the male line gratitude for little else. But as for the female line, who knows? Possibly it runs back to "Araby the blest," where horse pedigrees are cherished like a Connecticut coffee pot, until they fade into genealogical perspectives. Such perspectives, for example, as make the fine art of heraldic blazonry, frescoing and retouching precious to the British nobility--some of whom, by the way, have much less cause than the nameless, unblamable Mule, to canonize the low-neck and short-sleeve branch of their lineage. Although we do not know precisely who invented the Mule, it must be obvious that he is not a historical tenderfoot. He is not a mere ephemeral product of the county fair season, when alleged acrobats with leaky balloons monopolize the casualty columns. Neither is he one of those picturesque gubernatorial giraffes of the populist era, who come unwanted and go unwept. Notwithstanding the fact that he is necessarily renewed with each generation, he belongs to an old family--one, in fact, fairly rancid with antiquity. He was the unconsidered drudge of the hoariest ancients, in those days when the average human heart could be readily split up for floor tiles. He had been promoted thence to the rank of mail carrier as long ago as when Mordecai the Jew "sent letters by riders on Mules" from Babylon, after the king had turned the rascals out with a promptness that compelled the admiration of every taxpayer.