ZOO.  Yes:  the shortlived are as savage in their advances as in their relapses.  But when Science crept back, it had been taught its place.  The mere collectors of anatomical or chemical facts were not supposed to know more about Science than the collector of used postage stamps about international trade or literature.  The scientific terrorist who was afraid to use a spoon or a tumbler until he had dipt it in some poisonous acid to kill the microbes, was no longer given titles, pensions, and monstrous powers over the bodies of other people:  he was sent to an asylum, and treated there until his recovery.  But all that is an old story:  the extension of life to three hundred years has provided the human race with capable leaders, and made short work of such childish stuff.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [pettishly] You seem to credit every advance in civilization to your inordinately long lives.  Do you not know that this question was familiar to men who died before they had reached my own age?

ZOO.  Oh yes:  one or two of them hinted at it in a feeble way.  An ancient writer whose name has come down to us in several forms, such as Shakespear, Shelley, Sheridan, and Shoddy, has a remarkable passage about your dispositions being horridly shaken by thoughts beyond the reaches of your souls.  That does not come to much, does it?

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN.  At all events, madam, I may remind you, if you come to capping ages, that whatever your secondaries and tertiaries may be, you are younger than I am.

ZOO.  Yes, Daddy; but it is not the number of years we have behind us, but the number we have before us, that makes us careful and responsible and determined to find out the truth about everything.  What does it matter to you whether anything is true or not? your flesh is as grass:  you come up like a flower, and wither in your second childhood.  A lie will last your time:  it will not last mine.  If I knew I had to die in twenty years it would not be worth my while to educate myself:  I should not bother about anything but having a little pleasure while I lasted.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN.  Young woman:  you are mistaken.  Shortlived as we are, we—­the best of us, I mean—­regard civilization and learning, art and science, as an ever-burning torch, which passes from the hand of one generation to the hand of the next, each generation kindling it to a brighter, prouder flame.  Thus each lifetime, however short, contributes a brick to a vast and growing edifice, a page to a sacred volume, a chapter to a Bible, a Bible to a literature.  We may be insects; but like the coral insect we build islands which become continents:  like the bee we store sustenance for future communities.  The individual perishes; but the race is immortal.  The acorn of today is the oak of the next millennium.  I throw my stone on the cairn and die; but later comers add another stone and yet another; and lo! a mountain.  I—­