"If you follow along to the top of the galea," No. I droned on imperturbably, "you will...." etc.
I got tired of standing and talking to an empty house but at last they got up, apologising and making for the door.
I entreated them not to mention the matter—my fee should be nominal—I did it out of sheer love, etc.
They thanked me again and would have said more but I added blandly:
"You know your way out?" They assured me they did (having worked in the place for 30 years and more)—I thanked God—and sat down to my table once more.
(These reports of conversations are rather fatuous: yet they give an idea of the sort of person I have to deal with, and also the sort of person I am among this sort of person.)
April 6.
The Housefly Problem—1916
For weeks past we have all been in a terrible flutter scarcely paralleled by the outbreak of Armageddon in August, 1914. The spark which fired almost the whole building was a letter to the Times written by Dr. ——, making public an ignominious confession of ignorance on the part of Entomologists as to how the Housefly passed the winter. In reply, many correspondents wrote to say they hibernated, and one man was even so temerarious as to quote to us Entomologists the exact Latin name of the Housefly: viz., Musca domestica. We asked for specimens and enormous numbers of flies at once began to arrive at the Museum, alive and dead—and not a Housefly among them! So there was a terrible howdedo.
One of the correspondents was named "Masefield." "Not Masefield the poet?" an excited dipterist asked. I reassured him.