“Are you trying to get fresh with me?” he demanded dangerously.

“Yes,” said Ashe.

The answer seemed to disconcert his adversary.  He was silent for a moment.

“Well,” he said at last, “maybe it’s all for the best.  If you weren’t full of gall probably you wouldn’t have come here at all; and whoever takes on this job of mine has got to have gall if he has nothing else.  I think we shall suit each other.”

“What is the job?”

The little man’s face showed doubt and perplexity.

“It’s awkward.  If I’m to make the thing clear to you I’ve got to trust you.  And I don’t know a thing about you.  I wish I had thought of that before I inserted the advertisement.”

Ashe appreciated the difficulty.

“Couldn’t you make an A—­B case out of it?”

“Maybe I could if I knew what an A—­B case was.”

“Call the people mixed up in it A and B.”

“And forget, halfway through, who was which!  No; I guess I’ll have to trust you.”

“I’ll play square.”

The little man fastened his eyes on Ashe’s in a piercing stare.  Ashe met them smilingly.  His spirits, always fairly cheerful, had risen high by now.  There was something about the little man, in spite of his brusqueness and ill temper, which made him feel flippant.

“Pure white!” said Ashe.

“Eh?”

“My soul!  And this”—­he thumped the left section of his waistcoat—­“solid gold.  You may fire when ready, Gridley.  Proceed, professor.”

“I don’t know where to begin.”

“Without presuming to dictate, why not at the beginning?”

“It’s all so darned complicated that I don’t rightly know which is the beginning.  Well, see here . . .  I collect scarabs.  I’m crazy about scarabs.  Ever since I quit business, you might say that I have practically lived for scarabs.”

“Though it sounds like an unkind thing to say of anyone,” said Ashe.  “Incidentally, what are scarabs?” He held up his hand.  “Wait!  It all comes back to me.  Expensive classical education, now bearing belated fruit.  Scarabaeus—­Latin; noun, nominative—­a beetle.  Scarabaee—­vocative—­O you beetle!  Scarabaeum—­ accusative—­the beetle.  Scarabaei—­of the beetle.  Scarabaeo—­to or for the beetle.  I remember now.  Egypt—­Rameses—­pyramids—­ sacred scarabs!  Right!”

“Well, I guess I’ve gotten together the best collection of scarabs outside the British Museum, and some of them are worth what you like to me.  I don’t reckon money when it comes to a question of my scarabs.  Do you understand?”

“Sure, Mike!”

Displeasure clouded the little man’s face.

“My name is not Mike.”

“I used the word figuratively, as it were.”

“Well, don’t do it again.  My name is J. Preston Peters, and Mr. Peters will do as well as anything else when you want to attract my attention.”

“Mine is Marson.  You were saying, Mr. Peters—?”