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Page 41
The little man's face showed doubt and perplexity.
"It's awkward. If I'm to make the thing clear to you I've got to
trust you. And I don't know a thing about you. I wish I had
thought of that before I inserted the advertisement."
Ashe appreciated the difficulty.
"Couldn't you make an A--B case out of it?"
"Maybe I could if I knew what an A--B case was."
"Call the people mixed up in it A and B."
"And forget, halfway through, who was which! No; I guess I'll
have to trust you."
"I'll play square."
The little man fastened his eyes on Ashe's in a piercing stare.
Ashe met them smilingly. His spirits, always fairly cheerful, had
risen high by now. There was something about the little man, in
spite of his brusqueness and ill temper, which made him feel
flippant.
"Pure white!" said Ashe.
"Eh?"
"My soul! And this"--he thumped the left section of his
waistcoat--"solid gold. You may fire when ready, Gridley.
Proceed, professor."
"I don't know where to begin."
"Without presuming to dictate, why not at the beginning?"
"It's all so darned complicated that I don't rightly know which
is the beginning. Well, see here . . . I collect scarabs. I'm
crazy about scarabs. Ever since I quit business, you might say
that I have practically lived for scarabs."
"Though it sounds like an unkind thing to say of anyone," said
Ashe. "Incidentally, what are scarabs?" He held up his hand.
"Wait! It all comes back to me. Expensive classical education,
now bearing belated fruit. Scarabaeus--Latin; noun, nominative--a
beetle. Scarabaee--vocative--O you beetle! Scarabaeum--
accusative--the beetle. Scarabaei--of the beetle. Scarabaeo--to
or for the beetle. I remember now. Egypt--Rameses--pyramids--
sacred scarabs! Right!"
"Well, I guess I've gotten together the best collection of
scarabs outside the British Museum, and some of them are worth
what you like to me. I don't reckon money when it comes to a
question of my scarabs. Do you understand?"
"Sure, Mike!"
Displeasure clouded the little man's face.
"My name is not Mike."
"I used the word figuratively, as it were."
"Well, don't do it again. My name is J. Preston Peters, and Mr.
Peters will do as well as anything else when you want to attract
my attention."
"Mine is Marson. You were saying, Mr. Peters--?"
"Well, it's this way," said the little man.
Shakespeare and Pope have both emphasized the tediousness of a
twice-told tale; the Episode Of the Stolen Scarab need not be
repeated at this point, though it must be admitted that Mr.
Peters' version of it differed considerably from the calm,
dispassionate description the author, in his capacity of official
historian, has given earlier in the story.
In Mr. Peters' version the Earl of Emsworth appeared as a smooth
and purposeful robber, a sort of elderly Raffles, worming his way
into the homes of the innocent, and only sparing that portion of
their property which was too heavy for him to carry away. Mr.
Peters, indeed, specifically described the Earl of Emsworth as an
oily old second-story man.
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