and his friends standing
still, lost in thought, by the sink. When I poke him up, he blinks with
his antennae and slowly makes off. On the other hand, he can run at high
speed when the cook is pursuing him. And he zigzags his course most
ingeniously. He uses his head. Captain Dodge, of the British Navy, who
first used this method to escape from a submarine, is said to have
learned how to zigzag from the cockroaches aboard his own ship. They
should go down in history, those roaches, with the geese that saved
Rome.

Again and again I have tried to make a pet of the cockroach, for I
believe under his natural distrust he has an affectionate nature. But
some hostile servant has invariably undone my work. The only roach I
succeeded in taming was hardly a pet, because he used to hide with the
others half the time when he saw me, and once in a fit of resentment he
bit a hole in my shoe. Still, he sometimes used to come at my call when
I brought him warm tea. Poor fellow! poor Logan!--as I called him. He
had a difficult life. I think he was slightly dyspeptic. Perhaps the tea
was not good for him. He used to run about uttering low, nervous moans
before moulting; and when his time came to mate, I thought he never
would find the right doe. How well I remember my thrill when he picked
one at last, and when I knew that I was about to see their nuptial
flight. Higher and higher they circled over the clean blue linoleum,
with their short wings going so fast they fairly crackled, till the air
was electric: and then, swirling over the dresser, their great moment
came. Unhappily, Logan, with his usual bad luck, bumped the bread-box.
The doe, with a shrill, morose whistle, went and laid on the floor; but
Logan seemed too balked to pursue her. His flight was a failure.

He rapidly grew old after this, and used to keep by himself. He also got
into the habit of roaming around outdoors at night. Hated to see other
roaches mating by the bread-box, perhaps. As he was too big to crawl
back in under the door when we shut it, he was sometimes locked out when
he roamed, and had to wait until morning. This in the end caused his
death. One winter evening, blocked at the door, he climbed the
fire-escape and tried to get in the bathroom window. But it chanced to
be shut. He hung there all night, barking hoarsely--and I heard him, but
never thought it was Logan. When I went to look at the thermometer in
the morning, there he lay in the snow.