There are men in this world who cannot rest; who are so constituted that they can only take their leisure in the shape of a change of work. To this fairly numerous class belonged Mr. J. Preston Peters, father of Freddie's Aline. And to this merit—or defect—is to be attributed his almost maniacal devotion to that rather unattractive species of curio, the Egyptian scarab.
Five years before, a nervous breakdown had sent Mr. Peters to a
New York specialist. The specialist had grown rich on similar
cases and his advice was always the same. He insisted on Mr.
Peters taking up a hobby.
"What sort of a hobby?" inquired Mr. Peters irritably. His digestion had just begun to trouble him at the time, and his temper now was not of the best.
"Now my hobby," said the specialist, "is the collecting of scarabs. Why should you not collect scarabs?"
"Because," said Mr. Peters, "I shouldn't know one if you brought it to me on a plate. What are scarabs?"
"Scarabs," said the specialist, warming to his subject, "the
Egyptian hieroglyphs."
"And what," inquired Mr. Peters, "are Egyptian hieroglyphs?"
The specialist began to wonder whether it would not have been better to advise Mr. Peters to collect postage stamps.
"A scarab," he said—"derived from the Latin scarabeus—is literally a beetle."
"I will not collect beetles!" said Mr. Peters definitely. "They give me the Willies."