"Your thirty-six dissections must have cost you a deal of time and labor,—the Master said. —What have I to do with time, but to fill it up with labor?—answered the Scarabee.—It is my meat and drink to work over my beetles. My holidays are when I get a rare specimen. My rest is to watch the habits of insects,—those that I do not pretend to study. Here is my muscarium, my home for house-flies; very interesting creatures; here they breed and buzz and feed and enjoy themselves, and die in a good old age of a few months. My favorite insect lives in this other case; she is at home, but in her private-chamber; you shall see her. He tapped on the glass lightly, and a large, gray, hairy spider came forth from the hollow of a funnel-like web. —And this is all the friend you have to love?—said the Master, with a tenderness in his voice which made the question very significant. —Nothing else loves me better than she does, that I know of,—he answered. —To think of it! Not even a dog to lick his hand, or a cat to purr and rub her fur against him!"