“The first couple of hundred of ’em, miss.”
“Two hundred!” Again the access of laughter swelled the rounded bosom as the breeze fills a sail. “Where did you get them?”
“Woodpile, ash-heap, garbage-pail,” said the young man stolidly. “Any particular kind preferred, Miss Ackroyd?”
The girl looked at him with suspicion, but his face was blankly innocent.
“I’m not Miss Ackroyd,” she began with emphasis, when a querulous voice from an inner room called out: “Whom are you talking to, Sylvia?”
“A young man with a boxful of beetles,” returned the girl, adding in brisk French: “Il est tres amusant ce farceur. Je ne le comprends pas du tout. Cest une blague, peut-être. Si on l’invitait dans la maison pour un moment?”
Through one of the air-holes, considerately punched in the cardboard cover of the box, a sturdy crawler had succeeded in pushing himself. He was, in the main, of a shiny and well-groomed black, but two large patches of crimson gave him the festive appearance of being garbed in a brilliant sash. As he stood rubbing his fore-legs together in self-congratulation over his exploit, his bearer addressed him in French quite as ready as the girl’s:
“Permettez-moi, Monsieur le Coléoptère, de vous presenter mes excuses pour cette demoiselle qui s’exprime en langue étrangère chez elle.”
“Don’t apologize to the beetle on my account,” retorted the girl with spirit. “You’re here on your own terms, you know, both of you.”
Average Jones mutely held up the box in one hand and the advertisement in the other. The adventurer-bug flourished a farewell to the girl with his antennae, and retired within to advise his fellows of the charms of freedom.