is at a stampede following
the wrecking of a termitary. And that tells us no more about the real
natures of the things than you could tell about the nature of normal men
by watching their behavior after an earthquake!"

Jim Holden tapped out his pipe. On his face the impatiently humorous
look gave place to a measure of sympathy. Good old Denny. How he took
these trivial disappointments to heart. But, how odd that any man could
get so worked up over such small affairs! These bugologists were queer
people.

"Oh, well," he said, half really to soothe Denny, half deliberately to
draw him out, "why get all boiled up about the contrariness of ordinary
little bugs?"

Denny rose to the bait at once. "Ordinary little bugs? If you knew what
you were talking about, you wouldn't dismiss the termite so casually!
These 'ordinary little bugs' are the most intelligent, the most
significant and highly organized of all the insect world.

"Highly organized?" he repeated himself, his voice deepening. "They're
like a race of intelligent beings from another planet--superior even to
Man, in some ways. They have a king and queen. They have 'soldiers,'
developed from helpless, squashy things into nightmare creations with
lobster-claw mandibles longer than the rest of their bodies put
together. They have workers, who bore the tunnels and build the mounds.
And they have winged ones from among which are picked new kings and
queens to replace the original when they get old and useless. And all
these varied forms, Jim, they hatch at will, through some marvelous
power of selection, from the same, identical kind of eggs. Now, I ask
you, could you take the unborn child and make it into a man with four
arms or a woman with six legs and wings, at will, as these insects, in
effect, do with theirs?"

"I never tried," said Jim.

"Just a soft, helpless, squashy little bug, to begin with," Denny went
on, ignoring his friend's levity. "Able to live only in warm
countries--yet dying when exposed directly to the sun. Requiring a very
moist atmosphere, yet exiled to places where it doesn't rain for months
at a time. And still, under circumstances harsher even than those Man
has had to struggle against, they have survived and multiplied."

"Bah, bugs," murmured Jim maddeningly.

* * * * *

But again Denny ignored him, and went on with speculations concerning
the subject that was his life passion. He was really thinking alo