“Schweeble,” he kept repeating, “the great Schweeble. I’ve wanted to meet him all my life. He comes just at the right time, too, just when my paper on the Pyrrhula Europaea—bull-finch, my dear—is causing talk.”
“Don’t forget your goloshes,” admonished Mina.
Hervey Deyo, red, proud and flustered, was introduced half an hour later to that great Bohemian savant, Professor Schweeble, at the University Club. Professor Schweeble made him a courtly bow.
“Charmed, Doctor Deyo,” he said. “I haff heard much gebout you.”
Hervey Deyo bowed deeply; he was warm and crimson with pleasure.
“Oh, really?” he murmured.
“Yezz,” said the distinguished visitor, “who haff not heard of Deyo, the bee man?”
Deyo . . . the bee man!
“I?” Hervey Deyo was stunned, “I, a bee man? Oh, no, no, no, no, no!”
“Pardon. Pardon many times. You are but too modest,” said Professor Schweeble, wagging his index finger at the stricken Deyo. “But surely you are that same Deyo who makes the sound like the bee.”