There
are none too many people you can trust in your laboratory. I thought I
had a friend once, but he watched me at work and stole the discovery of a
new species from me, and, what is more, had it named after himself.
Since that time I have liked spiders better than men. They are hungry
and savage, but at any rate they spin their own webs out of their own
insides. I like very well to talk with gentlemen that play with my
branch of entomology; I do not doubt it amused you, and if you want to
see anything I can show you, I shall have no scruple in letting you see
it. I have never had any complaint to make of amatoors.
--Upon my honor,--I would hold my right hand up and take my Bible-oath,
if it was not busy with the pen at this moment,--I do not believe the
Scarabee had the least idea in the world of the satire on the student of
the Order of Things implied in his invitation to the "amatoor." As for
the Master, he stood fire perfectly, as he always does; but the idea that
he, who had worked a considerable part of several seasons at examining
and preparing insects, who believed himself to have given a new tabanus
to the catalogue of native diptera, the idea that he was playing with
science, and might be trusted anywhere as a harmless amateur, from whom
no expert could possibly fear any anticipation of his unpublished
discoveries, went beyond anything set down in that book of his which
contained so much of the strainings of his wisdom.
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