“It’s the Dear Friend. He looks small and meagre, but we must not judge from looks, Thomas. Beauty fades.”
Thomas surveyed Mary slowly. “It does,” he said.
The Dear Friend was so named from his habit of calling indiscriminately on other beetles, and excusing himself on the ground that he wanted to be their dear friend. He lived a very good life, and he wanted other beetles to be good. The want was noble, but he had not sufficient tact to conceal it. Some beetles thought him a bore, and did not care to hear him discuss their sins in his plain way. Others, seeing that he knew so little about this life, thought that he might have unusual knowledge of the next. Beetles, as a class, have a tendency towards mysticism. Mary had a firm belief in the goodness and spirituality of the Dear Friend, although she was dimly conscious that he was not clever. She was very anxious that he should have a few words with the dying Thomas.
“You will see him, dear, won’t you?” she said. “You’re drawing near to your end, you know, and it would do you good to experience a word in season. You have been such a bad beetle.”
“I have,” said Thomas, with a chuckle of intense self-satisfaction, “I’ve been a devilish bad beetle.”
The thought of his own exceeding immorality seemed quite to have restored his good temper. “Heavy-minded female, you are become brilliant. Never before have I experienced a word in season. You may stop, and we’ll interview the Dear Friend.”
Mary, like some females of higher organisations, was rarely able to understand the precise value of a satirical silence. Everything was cloudy in her brain, and nothing precise. She had vague ideas that she ought to be good, and that served her for aspirations. She had at least three decided opinions—that her mother had been very good and very kind to her, that Thomas was horribly bad and very unkind to her, and that of the two she infinitely preferred Thomas. She was emotional and rather self-seeking. At present she was very pleased at being praised, and welcomed the little visitor kindly as he crept across towards them. They formed an extraordinary trio even for beetles. It is not generally known that the lower the physical organisation the more complicated is the character. A beetle is as a rule much more contrary and difficult than a man. The character of a tubercular bacillus is so complex as to absolutely defy analysis.
“Mr. Thomas,” the Dear Friend began solemnly, “I am pleased to see you—in fact, I have come a long way with that intention. I had heard that you were very ill and like to die, and I had also heard—you will excuse me—of your past life.”
“Quite right,” said Thomas encouragingly, “I am guilty of having had a past life. Oh, sir, you can’t think how many beetles of my age have had a past of some kind or other. It is true that it was my own life—I have not taken any one else’s, not yet—but still I’ve had it. I feel that deeply.”
At this the Dear Friend warmed to his work, but made a fatal mistake—he grew slightly enthusiastic. Now Thomas could stand no manner of enthusiasm, because it always seemed to him to show an exaggerated conception of the value of things.