Adventure Magazine Cover — page 157: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Fire Brat Occasions not nearly so conspicuous-as he had been, for his back gradually began to darken . miraculously under the influence of the light, or himself, or both, so that after some _time, when you looked at him, you could hardly see him because he showed brown like the boards. Only his feelers and legs and pincers did not grow brown. They kept their original _color, and looked more shrimpy and pinky- white than ever. As soon as it grew dark Thermoby raced for better cover, and fell, like a soldier dodg- ing for a trench, into a deeper crack, where he promptly tumbled, he thought, among enemies—for they were of his own kind— but found they were two lady fire brats. None of the fire brats went above board— indeed, their doings were never quite “above board”’ in the other sense—till the lamp had been put out and the people of the dining- room had gone to bed. But there was much preliminary activity along the crevices and cracks while the lamp was alight. Everybody was hungry and moving restlessly along, driving the rest before him (or her), so that you met here and there whole lines of fire brats, four or five, moving slowly along a crack in Indian file. One such group bore down upon Ther- moby during the evening. His long tail whips told him of their coming, and when he had lashed himself nearly off his feet by way _ of warning, and the newcomer still pressed on, he knew, I think, that that same new- comer was being hustled, or at least invited forward by one behind him. At the same time, Thermoby appeared to be in no mood to leave the society of the ladies. It was obvious, also, that he could not just sit still, for we have seen what happens sometimes if you just sit still in fire brat company. To his brain, or whatever fire brats carry as substitute for a brain proper, however, a middle way was suggested. It was typical of these peculiar insect people, who, though they laid eggs like other insects, never got beyond the first, or larval, or caterpillar stage of life, never turned into chrysalises or pupze, and never became perfect insects, or imagos, as other insects do, but remained as the egg made them all their lives, though they grew. Thermoby did not go forward. He did not go back. He did not go anywhere, but he did not stand still. The others, being forced on: from behind, ran over him, and I5I as they ran he wriggled, that is, he kept up a perpetual sort of mild buck jump, so that it was impossible for any one of them to retain a footing long enough to give him a dig in the ribs, and impossible for them to do anything, in fact, but hurry on, slipping and sliding, as fast as they could. The last fire brat of the line was, as might have been expected, a very big specimen of his kind, and he, after negotiating ‘Thermo- by’s agitated back—he tried hard to stop in the middle and investigate—did not go any farther. He, too, one suspects, craved the society of the gentler sex. He had consider- ably the advantage of Thermoby in size and weight, but that seems to make no vital difference with these strange folk, or, at least, by no means is it a rule you can count upon. | Among a society where all are cannibals, or nearly all, certain of them seem to be set apart as essentially killers, and these not necessarily, though they may be, the largest, though what it is that marks them off from the rest were hard to tell, certainly no visible signs so far could be noticed. Now Thermoby himself was rather small as good-sized fire brats go, and before he turned dark in the light, and now he had ~ turned light in the dark again, of a slightly more silvery, or aluminum-color, than most, or so it seemed. Yet we have seen what manner of work he had already accom- plished, and this is the manner of work he now accomplished too. The big fellow was now in front of him, | with his back to Thermoby, but his triple tail threads made that as safe, almost, as if he had been facing him. The female fire brats were beyond. For an hour nothing happened. Then the people of the house went to bed, putting out the lamp, and the fire brats got busy. The fire threw a steady red glow over the hearth-rug and half of the two armchairs and the table beyond, conjuring out of them dragons of awful aspect. The people there believed in a fire on all but sweltering nights, and the fire brats believed in a fire always. It was their native heath, so to speak. The heat between the tiles where Ther- moby was was so great that nothing else, surely, except fire brats, could have stuck it, and lived. Yet they stuck it, and pres- ently one noticed that somehow Thermoby had managed to nip off one of the big fire COnniclboookks (C@