but it's very
remarkable. Old Leman dropped in here the other evening and began in his
usual style about Ibsen and the destiny of the human race, and the
Socialistic idea and all the rest of it--you know his way. Pyramids sat
on the edge of the table there and looked at him, just as he sat looking
at you a few minutes ago, and in less than a quarter of an hour Leman had
come to the conclusion that society would do better without ideals and
that the destiny of the human race was in all probability the dust heap.
He pushed his long hair back from his eyes and looked, for the first time
in his life, quite sane. 'We talk about ourselves,' he said, 'as though
we were the end of creation. I get tired listening to myself sometimes.
Pah!' he continued, 'for all we know the human race may die out utterly
and another insect take our place, as possibly we pushed out and took the
place of a former race of beings. I wonder if the ant tribe may not be
the future inheritors of the earth. They understand combination, and
already have an extra sense that we lack. If in the courses of evolution
they grow bigger in brain and body, they may become powerful rivals, who
knows?' Curious to hear old Leman talking like that, wasn't it?"

"What made you call him 'Pyramids'?" I asked of Dick.

"I don't know," he answered, "I suppose because he looked so old. The
name came to me."

I leaned across and looked into the great green eyes, and the creature,
never winking, never blinking, looked back into mine, until the feeling
came to me that I was being drawn down into the very wells of time. It
seemed as though the panorama of the ages must have passed in review
before those expressionless orbs--all the loves and hopes and desires of
mankind; all the everlasting truths that have been found false; all the
eternal faiths discovered to save, until it was discovered they damned.
The strange black creature grew and grew till it seemed to fill the room,
and Dick and I to be but shadows floating in the air.

I forced from myself a laugh, that only in part, however, broke the
spell, and inquired of Dick how he had acquired possession of it.

"It came to me," he answered, "one night six months ago. I was down on
my luck at the time. Two of my plays, on which I had built great hopes,
had failed, one on top of the other--you remember them--and it appeared
absurd to think that any manager would ever look at anything of mine
again. Old Walcott h