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."

"Scarabs are Egyptian symbols in the form of beetles," the
specialist hurried on. "The most common form of scarab is in the