A whole visiting Congress of Cosmolinguists came for a mass visit to the Zoo. But by that time we had cut off access to the incubator and the philologists had to content themselves with the polar bears and the Martian Mantises.

On the forty-sixth day of this madness the egg began to suddenly shake and shudder. My friend Professor Yakata and I were at that moment beside the hood which sheltered the egg with tea cups in our hands. We had already given up hope that anything would ever come out of the egg alive. We had been forced to halt the x-rays and other scanners because of the likelihood of damaging our ‘baby,’ And we hadn’t been able to predict the date and time of the delivery in as much as no one in the world prior to this had so far managed to deliver brontosaurs into the world..

And now, suddenly, the egg shook and shook, then it broke with a crack and through the thick leathery shell of the Egg a black, snake-like head began to emerge. The automatic cameras and data recorders began to click like mad. I knew that a red light had gone on over the door to the incubator room outside. Throughout the area of the Zoo something approaching panic took hold.

Five minutes later we were surrounded by everyone who had a right to be here and anyone who was able to find a spot and wanted in. It became very warm and very stuffy.

At last the small brontosaur forced its way completely out of the egg.

“Papa, what’s he called?” I suddenly heard a familiar voice.

“Alice!” I was shocked. “How did you get in here?”

“I came with the correspondents.”

“Children cannot come in here.”

“I can. I told everyone I was your daughter. They let me through.”

“Don’t you know it isn’t very nice to use the people you know for private ends?”

“But papa! Bronty’s so small; he’ll be bored without other children. So I came too.”

I could only throw up my hands. I didn’t have a minute free or I would have escorted Alice from the incubator myself, and there was no one around who would have agreed to do it for me either.