—­The Scarabee did not smile; he took no interest in trivial matters like this.

—­Lives on a bumblebee.  When you come to think of it, he must lead a pleasant kind of life.  Sails through the air without the trouble of flying.  Free pass everywhere that the bee goes.  No fear of being dislodged; look at those six grappling-hooks.  Helps himself to such juices of the bee as he likes best; the bee feeds on the choicest vegetable nectars, and he feeds on the bee.  Lives either in the air or in the perfumed pavilion of the fairest and sweetest flowers.  Think what tents the hollyhocks and the great lilies spread for him!  And wherever he travels a band of music goes with him, for this hum which wanders by us is doubtless to him a vast and inspiring strain of melody.—­I thought all this, while the Scarabee supposed I was studying the minute characters of the enigmatical specimen.

—­I know what I consider your pediculus melittae, I said at length.

Do you think it really the larva of meloe?

—­Oh, I don’t know much about that, but I think he is the best cared for, on the whole, of any animal that I know of; and if I wasn’t a man I believe I had rather be that little sybarite than anything that feasts at the board of nature.

—­The question is, whether he is the larva of meloe,—­the Scarabee said, as if he had not heard a word of what I had just been saying.——­If I live a few years longer it shall be settled, sir; and if my epitaph can say honestly that I settled it, I shall be willing to trust my posthumous fame to that achievement.

I said good morning to the specialist, and went off feeling not only kindly, but respectfully towards him.  He is an enthusiast, at any rate, as “earnest” a man as any philanthropic reformer who, having passed his life in worrying people out of their misdoings into good behavior, comes at last to a state in which he is never contented except when he is making somebody uncomfortable.  He does certainly know one thing well, very likely better than anybody in the world.

I find myself somewhat singularly placed at our table between a minute philosopher who has concentrated all his faculties on a single subject, and my friend who finds the present universe too restricted for his intelligence.  I would not give much to hear what the Scarabee says about the old Master, for he does not pretend to form a judgment of anything but beetles, but I should like to hear what the Master has to say about the Scarabee.  I waited after breakfast until he had gone, and then asked the Master what he could make of our dried-up friend.