The Scarabee's exultation and glow as he spoke of the errors of the great
entomologist which he himself could have corrected, had the effect on the
old Master which a lusty crow has upon the feathered champion of the
neighboring barnyard. He too knew something about insects. Had he not
discovered a new tabanus? Had he not made preparations of the very
coleoptera the Scarabee studied so exclusively,--preparations which the
illustrious Swammerdam would not have been ashamed of, and dissected a
melolontha as exquisitely as Strauss Durckheim himself ever did it? So
the Master, recalling these studies of his and certain difficult and
disputed points at which he had labored in one of his entomological
paroxysms, put a question which there can be little doubt was intended to
puzzle the Scarabee, and perhaps,--for the best of us is human (I am
beginning to love the old Master, but he has his little weaknesses, thank
Heaven, like the rest of us),--I say perhaps, was meant to show that some
folks knew as much about some things as some other folks.
The little dried-up specialist did not dilate into fighting dimensions
as--perhaps, again--the Master may have thought he would. He looked a
mild surprise, but remained as quiet as one of his own beetles when you
touch him and he makes believe he is dead.
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