hat make books about ourselves and our slippery abstractions? A man can
see the spots on a bug and count 'em, and tell what their color is, and
put another bug alongside of him and see whether the two are alike or
different. And when he uses a word he knows just what he means. There
is no mistake as to the meaning and identity of pulex irritans, confound
him!

--What if we should look in, some day, on the Scarabeeist, as he calls
himself?--said I.---The fact is the Master had got agoing at such a rate
that I was willing to give a little turn to the conversation.

--Oh, very well,--said the Master,--I had some more things to say, but I
don't doubt they'll keep. And besides, I take an interest in entomology,
and have my own opinion on the meloe question.

--You don't mean to say you have studied insects as well as solar systems
and the order of things generally?

--He looked pleased. All philosophers look pleased when people say to
them virtually, "Ye are gods." The Master says he is vain
constitutionally, and thanks God that he is. I don't think he has enough
vanity to make a fool of himself with it, but the simple truth is he
cannot help knowing that he has a wide and lively intelligence, and it
pleases him to know it, and to be reminded of it, especially in an
oblique and tangential sort of way, so as not to look like downright
flattery.

Yes, yes, I have amused a summer or two with insects, among other things.
I described a new tabanus,--horsefly, you know,--which, I think, had
escaped notice. I felt as grand when I showed up my new discovery as if
I had created the beast. I don't doubt Herschel felt as if he had made a
planet when he first showed the astronomers Georgium Sidus, as he called
it. And that reminds me of something. I was riding on the outside of a
stagecoach from London to Windsor in the year--never mind the year, but
it must have been in June, I suppose, for I bought some strawberries.
England owes me a sixpence with interest from date, for I gave the woman
a shilling, and the coach contrived to start or the woman timed it so
that I just missed getting my change. What an odd thing memory is, to be
sure, to have kept such a triviality, and have lost so much that was
invaluable! She is a crazy wench, that Mnemosyne; she throws her jewels
out of the window and locks up straws and old rags in her strong box.

[De profundis! said I to myself, the bottom of the bushel has dropped
out! Sancta