eyes of archeologists I should advise you to throw them away. The
remaining twelve are good."

"How do you mean--good? Why is one of these things valuable and
another so much punk? They all look alike to me."

And then the expert talked to Mr. Peters for nearly two hours
about the New Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, Osiris, Ammon, Mut,
Bubastis, dynasties, Cheops, the Hyksos kings, cylinders, bezels,
Amenophis III, Queen Taia, the Princess Gilukhipa of Mitanni, the
lake of Zarukhe, Naucratis, and the Book of the Dead. He did it
with a relish. He liked to do it.

When he had finished, Mr. Peters thanked him and went to the
bathroom, where he bathed his temples with eau de Cologne.

That talk changed J. Preston Peters from a supercilious
scooper-up of random scarabs to what might be called a genuine
scarab fan. It does not matter what a man collects; if Nature has
given him the collector's mind he will become a fanatic on the
subject of whatever collection he sets out to make. Mr. Peters
had collected dollars; he began to collect scarabs with precisely
the same enthusiasm. He would have become just as enthusiastic
about butterflies or old china if he had turned his thoughts to
them; but it chanced that what he had taken up was the collecting
of the scarab, and it gripped him more and more as the years went
on.

Gradually he came to love his scarabs with that love, surpassing
the love of women, which only collectors know. He became an