creatures. I object to being required to model my proceedings according
to the proceedings of the bee, or the dog, or the spider, or the camel.
I fully admit that the camel, for instance, is an excessively temperate
person; but he has several stomachs to entertain himself with, and I
have only one. Besides, I am not fitted up with a convenient cool cellar
to keep my drink in.'

'But I said, you know,' urged Mr Boffin, rather at a loss for an answer,
'the bee.'

'Exactly. And may I represent to you that it's injudicious to say the
bee? For the whole case is assumed. Conceding for a moment that there is
any analogy between a bee, and a man in a shirt and pantaloons (which
I deny), and that it is settled that the man is to learn from the bee
(which I also deny), the question still remains, what is he to learn?
To imitate? Or to avoid? When your friends the bees worry themselves to
that highly fluttered extent about their sovereign, and become perfectly
distracted touching the slightest monarchical movement, are we men to
learn the greatness of Tuft-hunting, or the littleness of the
Court Circular? I am not clear, Mr Boffin, but that the hive may be
satirical.'

'At all events, they work,' said Mr Boffin.

'Ye-es,' returned Eugene, disparagingly, 'they work; but don't you think
they overdo it? They work so much more than they need--they make so much
more than they can eat--they are so incessantly boring and buzzing at
their one idea till Death comes upon them--that don't you think they
overdo it? And are human labourers to have no holidays, because of the
bees? And am I never to have change of air, because the bees don't? Mr