lf for the moment, or at least the chief portion of ourself (the
other half-self retiring into a dim corner of semiconsciousness and
cowering under the storm of sneers and contumely,--you follow me
perfectly, Beloved,--the way is as plain as the path of the babe to the
maternal fount), as, I say, the abusive fellow is the chief part of us
for the time, and he likes to exercise his slanderous vocabulary, we on
the whole enjoy a brief season of self-depreciation and self-scolding
very heartily.

It is quite certain that both of us, the Master and myself, conceived on
the instant a respect for the Scarabee which we had not before felt. He
had grappled with one difficulty at any rate and mastered it. He had
settled one thing, at least, so it appeared, in such a way that it was
not to be brought up again. And now he was determined, if it cost him
the effort of all his remaining days, to close another discussion and put
forever to rest the anxious doubts about the larva of meloe.

--Your thirty-six dissections must have cost you a deal of time and
labor,--the Master said.

--What have I to do with time, but to fill it up with labor?--answered
the Scarabee.---It is my meat and drink to work over my beetles. My
holidays are when I get a rare specimen. My rest is to watch the habits
of insects, those that I do not pretend to study. Here is my muscarium,
my home for house-flies; very interesting creatures; here they breed and
buzz and feed and enjoy themselves, and die in a good old age of a few
months. My favorite insect lives in this other case; she is at home, but
in her private-chamber; you shall see her.

He tapped on the glass lightly, and a large, gray, hairy spider came
forth from the hollow of a funnel-like web.

--And this is all the friend you have to love? said the Master, with a
tenderness in his voice which made the question very significant.

--Nothing else loves me better than she does, that I know of,--he
answered.

--To think of it! Not even a dog to lick his hand, or a cat to purr and
rub her fur against him! Oh, these boarding-houses, these
boarding-houses! What forlorn people one sees stranded on their desolate
shores! Decayed gentlewomen with the poor wrecks of what once made their
households beautiful, disposed around them in narrow chambers as they
best may be, coming down day after day, poor souls! to sit at the board
with strangers; their hearts full of sad memories which have no languag