“Woman.  Yes, I know all about that.  But I’m a groundling.”

“Mr. Beetle Man,” she said, in a tremulous voice, “the rock is moving.”

“I don’t feel it.  Though it might be a touch of earthquake.  We have ’em often.”

“Not your rock.  The tarantula rock, I mean.”

“Nonsense!  A hundred tarantulas couldn’t stir it.”

“Well, it seems to be moving, and that’s just as bad.  I’m tired and I’m lonely.  Oh, please, Professor Scarab, have I got to fall on your neck again to introduce a little human companionship into this conversation?”

“Caesar!  No!  My shoulder’s still lame.  What do you want, anyway?”

“I want to know about you and your work.  All about you.”

“Humph!  Well, at present I’m making some microscopical studies of insects.  That’s the reason for these glasses.  The light is so harsh in these latitudes that it affects the vision a trifle, and every trifle counts in microscopy.”

“Does the microscope add charm to the beetle?”

“Some day I’ll show you, if you like.  Just now it’s the flea, the national bird of Caracuna.”

“The wicked flea?”

“Nobody knows how wicked until he has studied him on his native heath.”

“Doesn’t the flea have something to do with plague?  They say there’s plague in the city now.  You knew all about the Dutch.  Do you know anything about the plague?”

“You’ve been listening to bolas.”

“What’s a bola?”

“A bola is information that somebody who is totally ignorant of the facts whispers confidentially in your ear with the assurance that he knows it to be authentic—­in other words, a lie.”

“Then there isn’t any plague down under those quaint, old, red-tiled roofs?”

“Who ever knows what’s going on under those quaint, old, red-tiled roofs?  No foreigner, certainly.”

“Even I can feel the mystery, little as I’ve seen of the place,” said the girl.

“Oh, that’s the Indian of it.  The tiled roofs are Spanish; the speech is Spanish; but just beneath roof and speech, the life and thought are profoundly and unfathomably Indian.”

“Not with all the Caracunans, surely.  Take Mr. Raimonda, for instance.”

“Ah, that’s different.  Twenty families of the city, perhaps, are pure-bloods.  There are no finer, cleaner fellows anywhere than the well-bred Caracunans.  They are men of the world, European educated, good sportsmen, straight, honorable gentlemen.  Unfortunately not they, but a gang of mongrel grafters control the politics of the country.”

“For a hermit of science, you seem to know a good deal of what goes on.  By the way, Mr. Raimonda called on me—­on us last evening.”

“So he mentioned.  Rather serious, that, you know.”

“Far from it.  He was very amusing.”

“Doubtless,” commented the other dryly.  “But it isn’t fair to play the game with one who doesn’t know the rules.  Besides, what will Mr. Preston Fairfax—­”