第18章

I shall try to go through the rest of my description of our boarders with as little of digression as is consistent with my nature.Ithink we have a somewhat exceptional company.Since our Landlady has got up in the world, her board has been decidedly a favorite with persons a little above the average in point of intelligence and education.In fact, ever since a boarder of hers, not wholly unknown to the reading public, brought her establishment into notice, it has attracted a considerable number of literary and scientific people, and now and then a politician, like the Member of the House of Representatives, otherwise called the Great and General Court of the State of Massachusetts.The consequence is, that there is more individuality of character than in a good many similar boardinghouses, where all are business-men, engrossed in the same pursuit of money-making, or all are engaged in politics, and so deeply occupied with the welfare of the community that they can think and talk of little else.

At my left hand sits as singular-looking a human being as I remember seeing outside of a regular museum or tent-show.His black coat shines as if it had been polished; and it has been polished on the wearer's back, no doubt, for the arms and other points of maximum attrition are particularly smooth and bright.Round shoulders,--stooping over some minute labor, I suppose.Very slender limbs, with bends like a grasshopper's; sits a great deal, I presume; looks as if he might straighten them out all of a sudden, and jump instead of walking.Wears goggles very commonly; says it rests his eyes, which he strains in looking at very small objects.Voice has a dry creak, as if made by some small piece of mechanism that wanted oiling.Idon't think he is a botanist, for he does not smell of dried herbs, but carries a camphorated atmosphere about with him, as if to keep the moths from attacking him.I must find out what is his particular interest.One ought to know something about his immediate neighbors at the table.This is what I said to myself, before opening a conversation with him.Everybody in our ward of the city was in a great stir about a certain election, and I thought I might as well begin with that as anything.

--How do you think the vote is likely to go tomorrow?--I said.

--It isn't to-morrow,--he answered,--it 's next month.

--Next month!--said I.---Why, what election do you mean?

--I mean the election to the Presidency of the Entomological Society, sir,--he creaked, with an air of surprise, as if nobody could by any possibility have been thinking of any other.Great competition, sir, between the dipterists and the lepidopterists as to which shall get in their candidate.Several close ballotings already; adjourned for a fortnight.Poor concerns, both of 'em.Wait till our turn comes.

--I suppose you are an entomologist?--I said with a note of interrogation.

-Not quite so ambitious as that, sir.I should like to put my eyes on the individual entitled to that name! A society may call itself an Entomological Society, but the man who arrogates such a broad title as that to himself, in the present state of science, is a pretender, sir, a dilettante, an impostor! No man can be truly called an entomologist, sir; the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp.

--May I venture to ask,--I said, a little awed by his statement and manner,--what is your special province of study?

I am often spoken of as a Coleopterist,--he said,--but I have no right to so comprehensive a name.The genus Scarabaeus is what Ihave chiefly confined myself to, and ought to have studied exclusively.The beetles proper ,are quite enough for the labor of one man's life.Call me a Scarabaeist if you will; if I can prove myself worthy of that name, my highest ambition will be more than satisfied.

I think, by way of compromise and convenience, I shall call him the Scarabee.He has come to look wonderfully like those creatures,--the beetles, I mean,---by being so much among them.His room is hung round with cases of them, each impaled on a pin driven through him, something as they used to bury suicides.These cases take the place for him of pictures and all other ornaments.That Boy steals into his room sometimes, and stares at them with great admiration, and has himself undertaken to form a rival cabinet, chiefly consisting of flies, so far, arranged in ranks superintended by an occasional spider.

The old Master, who is a bachelor, has a kindly feeling for this little monkey, and those of his kind.

--I like children,--he said to me one day at table,--I like 'em, and I respect 'em.Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by them.Do you know they play the part in the household which the king's jester, who very often had a mighty long head under his cap and bells, used to play for a monarch? There 's no radical club like a nest of little folks in a nursery.Did you ever watch a baby's fingers? I have, often enough, though I never knew what it was to own one.---The Master paused half a minute or so,--sighed,--perhaps at thinking what he had missed in life,--looked up at me a little vacantly.I saw what was the matter; he had lost the thread of his talk.

--Baby's fingers,--I intercalated.