Goblin. We shall be able to say we are young when we are old; and we shall forget our cares when we cannot fix their anniversary. Besides, when we are very old, we shall not know it, nor be expecting death daily.
Gnome. But how is it these rogues have disappeared?
Goblin. Some killed themselves with fighting; others were drowned in the sea. Some ate each other. Not a few committed suicide. Some died of ennui in idleness; and some turned their brains with study. Debauch, and a thousand other excesses, put an end to many more. In short, they have arrived at their end, by endeavouring, as long as they lived, to violate the laws of nature, and to go contrary to their welfare.
Gnome. Still, I do not understand how an entire race of animals can become extinct without leaving any trace behind it.
Goblin. You who are a specialist in geology ought to know that the circumstance is not a new one, and that many kinds of animals lived anciently, which to-day are nowhere to be found except in the remains of a few petrified bones. Moreover, these poor creatures employed none of the means used by men for their destruction.
Gnome. It may be so. I should dearly like to resuscitate one or two of the rascals, just to know what they would think when they saw all going on as before, in spite of the disappearance of the human race. Would they then imagine that everything was made and maintained solely for them?
Goblin. They would not like to realise that the world exists solely for the use of the Goblins.
Gnome. You are joking, my friend, if you mean what you say.
Goblin. Why? Of course I do.
Gnome. Go along with you, buffoon! who does not know that the world is made for the Gnomes?