inor
additions in the published version: "coal to fry the fish"; and
the remnants of life being chased from pole to pole "without a dry
rag on them,"; and the "coat of paint" on top of the bulb on top
the Eiffel Tower representing "man's portion of this world's
history." Ed.]

He often held forth on the shortcomings of the human race--always a
favorite subject--the incompetencies and imperfections of this final
creation, in spite of, or because of, his great attribute--the
imagination. Once (this was in the billiard-room) I started him by
saying that whatever the conditions in other planets, there seemed no
reason why life should not develop in each, adapted as perfectly to
prevailing conditions as man is suited to conditions here. He said:

"Is it your idea, then, that man is perfectly adapted to the conditions
of this planet?"

I began to qualify, rather weakly; but what I said did not matter. He
was off on his favorite theme.

"Man adapted to the earth?" he said. "Why, he can't sleep out-of-doors
without freezing to death or getting the rheumatism or the malaria; he
can't keep his nose under water over a minute without being drowned; he
can't climb a tree without falling out and breaking his neck. Why, he's
the poorest, clumsiest excuse of all the creatures that inhabit this
earth. He has got to be coddled and housed and swathed and bandaged and
up holstered to be able to live at all. He is a rickety sort of a thing,
anyway you take him, a regular British Museum of infirmities and
inferiorities. He is always under going repairs. A machine that is as
unreliable as he is would have no market. The higher animals get their
teeth without pain or inconvenience. The original cave man, the
troglodyte, may have got his that way. But now they come through months
and months of cruel torture, and at a time of life when he is least able
to bear it. As soon as he gets them they must all be pulled out again,
for they were of no value in the first place, not worth the loss of a
night's rest. The second set will answer for a while; but he will never
get a set that can be depended on until the dentist makes one. The
animals are not much troubled that way. In a wild state, a natural
state, they have few diseases; their main one is old age. But man starts
in as a child and lives on diseases to the end as a regular diet. He has
mumps, measles, whooping-cough, croup, tonsilitis, diphtheria,
scarlet-fever, as a ma