into old bottles, but if an old cask has held good wine, it may
improve a crude juice to stand awhile upon the lees of that which once
filled it.

I thought the company had had about enough of this disquisition. They
listened very decorously, and the Professor, who agrees very well with
me, as I happen to know, in my views on this business of realism, thanked
me for giving them the benefit of my opinion.

The silence that followed was broken by Number Seven's suddenly
exclaiming,--

"I should like to boss creation for a week!"

This expression was an outbreak suggested by some train of thought which
Number Seven had been following while I was discoursing. I do not think
one of the company looked as if he or she were shocked by it as an
irreligious or even profane speech. It is a better way always, in
dealing with one of those squinting brains, to let it follow out its own
thought. It will keep to it for a while; then it will quit the rail, so
to speak, and run to any side-track which may present itself.

"What is the first thing you would do?" asked Number Five in a pleasant,
easy way.

"The first thing? Pick out a few thousand of the best specimens of the
best races, and drown the rest like so many blind puppies."

"Why," said she, "that was tried once, and does not seem to have worked
very well."

"Very likely. You mean Noah's flood, I suppose. More people nowadays,
and a better lot to pick from than Noah had."

"Do tell us whom you would take with you," said Number Five.

"You, if you would go," he answered, and I thought I saw a slight flush
on his cheek. "But I didn't say that I should go aboard the new ark
myself. I am not sure that I should. No, I am pretty sure that I
shouldn't. I don't believe, on the whole, it would pay me to save
myself. I ain't of much account. But I could pick out some that were."

And just now he was saying that he should like to boss the universe! All
this has nothing very wonderful about it. Every one of us is subject to
alternations of overvaluation and undervaluation of ourselves. Do you
not remember soliloquies something like this? "Was there ever such a
senseless, stupid creature as I am? How have I managed to keep so long
out of the idiot asylum? Undertook to write a poem, and stuck fast at
the first verse. Had a call from a friend who had just been round the
world. Did n't ask him one word about what he had seen or heard, but
gave him full details of my private histor