expert on those curious relics of a dead civilization. For a time
they ran neck and neck in his thoughts with business. When he
retired from business he was free to make them the master passion
of his life. He treasured each individual scarab in his
collection as a miser treasures gold.

Collecting, as Mr. Peters did it, resembles the drink habit. It
begins as an amusement and ends as an obsession. He was gloating
over his treasures when the maid announced Lord Emsworth.

A curious species of mutual toleration--it could hardly be
dignified by the title of friendship--had sprung up between these
two men, so opposite in practically every respect. Each regarded
the other with that feeling of perpetual amazement with which we
encounter those whose whole viewpoint and mode of life is foreign
to our own.

The American's force and nervous energy fascinated Lord Emsworth.
As for Mr. Peters, nothing like the earl had ever happened to him
before in a long and varied life. Each, in fact, was to the other
a perpetual freak show, with no charge for admission. And if
anything had been needed to cement the alliance it would have
been supplied by the fact that they were both collectors.

They differed in collecting as they did in everything else. Mr.
Peters' collecting, as has been shown, was keen, furious,
concentrated; Lord Emsworth's had the amiable dodderingness that
marked every branch of his life. In the museum at Blandings
Castle you could find every manner of valuable and valueless
curio. There was no central motive; the place was simply an