ur balance by that time. This protoplasm does what
it's told to do--that's how it made eyes for us to see, and ears to
hear, and brains to think with--so by that time we'll be really living;
we'll have a form that's plastic, and can change round to meet any
change of environment, so we won't have to die if it gets too cold or
too hot. We want to live--we all want to live; by that time we'll be
able to go on living.

"Of course we won't be looking much like we are now, we're pretty clumsy
machines so far. I suppose, for one thing, we'll be getting our
nourishment straight from the elements instead of taking it through
plants and animals. We'll be as superior to what we are now as he is to
a hoptoad." The speaker indicated Sharon Whipple with the calabash.
Sharon wriggled self-consciously. "And pretty soon people will forget
that any one ever died; they won't believe it when they read it in old
books; they won't understand it. This time is coming, as near as I can
figure it, in seven hundred and fifty thousand years. That is, in round
numbers, it might be an odd hundred thousand years more or less. Of
course I can't be precise in such a matter."

"Of course not," murmured Harvey D., sympathetically; "but what we were
wanting to get at--"

"Of course," resumed the lecturer, "I know there's still a catch in it.
You say, 'What does it mean after that?' Well, I'll be honest with you,
I haven't been able to figure it out much farther. We'll go on and on
till this earth dries up, and then we'll move to another, or build
one--I can't tell which--and all the time we're moving round something,
but I don't know what or why. I only know it's been going on
forever--this life thing--and we're a little speck in the current, and
it will keep going on forever.

"But you can bet this: It will always go on by competition. There won't
ever be any Utopia, like these holy rollers can lay out for you in five
minutes. I been watching union labour long enough to know that. But
she's a grand scheme. I'm glad I got this little look at it. I wouldn't
change it in any detail, not if you come to me with full power. I
couldn't think of any better way than competition, not if I took a
life-time to it. It's a sporty proposition."

The speaker beamed modestly upon his hearers. Gideon was quick to clutch
the moment's pause.

"What about this boy Merle?" he demanded before Dave could resume.

"Oh, him?" said Dave. "Him and his holy rolling? Is that