“Deyo, the bee man, eh,” his lips kept saying. “I’ll show ’em who’s a bee man. I’ll show ’em.”
But he found it impossible to withdraw from social life; the adulation he received as the most perfect imitator of a bee extant had come to be necessary to him; he continued to go out to social functions; he continued to be asked to imitate a bee; he continued to comply. Mina’s smile had less and less of an attentive quality in it; she began to find excuses for not going with him; but he insisted that it was her duty; she could not give him adequate reasons for evading it.
He was forty when he went down to New York to attend a dinner—a very special dinner—of the Ornithological Congress of the World, then in session. For months he worked to prepare a paper that would definitely place him at the head of his science, now that Schweeble was no more. It was on the mental habits of grouse (Tetraoninae). He rose to read it, but some bibulous lesser bird man in the rear of the hall called out, “Forget the grouse. Give us the bee.” Others took up the cry.
“Forget the grouse. Give us the bee.”
The whole room took up the cry.
“Forget the grouse. Give us the bee.”
“Yes, yes, the bee. We want the bee. We want the bee. WE WANT THE BEE.”
Ornithologists have their light moods.
He twisted the table-cloth in a great despair; a furious refusal stuck in his throat; habit was stronger than he.
“Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzrf!”