—­You ought to have seen the way in which the poor dried-up little Scarabee turned towards me.  His eyes took on a really human look, and I almost thought those antennae-like arms of his would have stretched themselves out and embraced me.  I don’t believe any of the boarders had ever shown any interest in—­him, except the little monkey of a Boy, since he had been in the house.  It is not strange; he had not seemed to me much like a human being, until all at once I touched the one point where his vitality had concentrated itself, and he stood revealed a man and a brother.

—­Come in,—­said he,—­come in, right after breakfast, and you shall see the animal that has convulsed the entomological world with questions as to his nature and origin.

—­So I went into the Scarabee’s parlor, lodging-room, study, laboratory, and museum,—­a—­single apartment applied to these various uses, you understand.

—­I wish I had time to have you show me all your treasures,—­I said, —­but I am afraid I shall hardly be able to do more than look at the bee-parasite.  But what a superb butterfly you have in that case!

—­Oh, yes, yes, well enough,—­came from South America with the beetle there; look at him!  These Lepidoptera are for children to play with, pretty to look at, so some think.  Give me the Coleoptera, and the kings of the Coleoptera are the beetles!  Lepidoptera and Neuroptera for little folks; Coleopteras for men, sir!

—­The particular beetle he showed me in the case with the magnificent butterfly was an odious black wretch that one would say, Ugh! at, and kick out of his path, if he did not serve him worse than that.  But he looked at it as a coin-collector would look at a Pescennius Niger, if the coins of that Emperor are as scarce as they used to be when I was collecting half-penny tokens and pine-tree shillings and battered bits of Roman brass with the head of Gallienus or some such old fellow on them.

—­A beauty!—­he exclaimed,—­and the only specimen of the kind in this country, to the best of my belief.  A unique, sir, and there is a pleasure in exclusive possession.  Not another beetle like that short of South America, sir.

—­I was glad to hear that there were no more like it in this neighborhood, the present supply of cockroaches answering every purpose, so far as I am concerned, that such an animal as this would be likely to serve.

—­Here are my bee-parasites,—­said the Scarabee, showing me a box full of glass slides, each with a specimen ready mounted for the microscope.  I was most struck with one little beast flattened out like a turtle, semi-transparent, six-legged, as I remember him, and every leg terminated by a single claw hooked like a lion’s and as formidable for the size of the creature as that of the royal beast.

—­Lives on a bumblebee, does he?—­I said.  That’s the way I call it.  Bumblebee or bumblybee and huckleberry.  Humblebee and whortleberry for people that say Woos-ses-ter and Nor-wich.