“Was I?  I—­I presume I was if you say so.  Really I—­I have forgotten.”

“Course you have.  And you forgot your watch, too.  Left it layin’ right alongside that tin washbasin full of soapsuds.  ’Twas a mercy you didn’t empty out the suds on top of it.  Well, I snaked it out of the sink and chased out the door to give it to you and you was halfway to the lighthouse and I couldn’t make you hear to save my soul.  ’Twas then I noticed that charm thing.  That’s an awful funny kind of thing, Mr. Bangs.  There’s a—­a bug on it, ain’t there?”

“Why—­ah—­yes, Primmie.  That charm is a very old scarab.”

“Hey?  A what?  I told Miss Martha it looked for all the world like a pertater bug.”

Galusha smiled.  He held out the charm for her inspection.

“I have had that for a long time,” he said.  “It is a—­ah—­souvenir of my first Egyptian expedition.  The scarab is a rather rare example.  I found it myself at Saqqarah, in a tomb.  It is a scarab of the Vth Dynasty.”

“Hey?  Die—­what?”

“The Vth Dynasty; that is the way we classify Egyptian—­ah—­relics, by dynasties, you know.  The Vth Dynasty was about six thousand years ago.”

Primmie sat down upon the chair she had been dusting.

“Hey?” she exclaimed.  “My Lord of Isrul!  Is that bug thing there six thousand year old?”

“Yes.”

“My savin’ soul!  What kind of a bug did you say ’twas?”

“Why, I don’t know that I did say.  It is a representation of an Egyptian beetle, Ateuchus Sacer, you know.  The ancient Egyptians worshiped the beetle and so they—­”

“Wait!  Wait a minute, Mr. Bangs.  What did you say they done to it?”

“I said they worshiped it, made a god of it, you understand.”

“A god!  Out of a—­a pertater bug!  Go long, Mr. Bangs!  You’re foolin’, ain’t you?”

“Dear me, no!  It’s quite true, Primmie, really.  The ancient Egyptians had many gods, some like human beings, some in the forms of animals.  The goddess Hathor, for example, was the goddess of the dead and is always represented in the shape of a cow.”

“Eh!  A cow!  Do you mean to sit there and tell me them folks—­er—­ er—­went to church meetin’ and—­and flopped down and said their prayers to a cow?”

Galusha smiled.  “Why, yes,” he said, “I presume you might call it that.  And another god of theirs had the head of a hawk—­the bird, you know.  The cat, too, was a very sacred animal.  And, as I say, the beetle, like the one represented here, was—­”

“Hold on, Mr. Bangs!  Ho-old on!  Don’t say no more to me now.  Let me kind of—­of settle my stomach, as you might say, ’fore you fetch any more onto the table.  Worshipin’ cows and—­and henhawks and—­ and cats and bugs and—­and hoptoads and clams, for what I know!  My savin’ soul!  What made ’em do it?  What did they do it for?  Was they all crazy?”