The old man wouldn't allow that. Boodles belonged to the angels, and he told her so with foolish expressions; but she shook her glorious red head at him and declared that beetles and angels had nothing in common. She admitted, however, that she belonged to a delightful order of beetles, and that on the whole she preferred chocolates to grain. The silly old man reminded her that she belonged to the boodle-oodle order of beetles, and so far she was the only specimen of that choice family which had been discovered. A man is eccentric in this world if he does anything which his neighbours cannot understand. He may go out in the garden and cut a cabbage-leaf. That is a sane action. But if he spreads jam on the cabbage-leaf, and eats the same publicly, he is called a madman. Nothing is easier than to be thought eccentric. You have only to behave unlike other people. Stand in the middle of a crowded street and gaze vacantly into the air. Every one will call you eccentric at once, just because you are gazing in the air and they are not. Weevil was mad because he was unlike his neighbours. The adoption of Boodles was not a sane action; even if she were his daughter it was equally insane to acknowledge her with such shameless publicity. A sane person would have allowed Boodles to share the fate of many illegitimate children. They were happy these two, papa Weevil and his Boodles. They had no servant. The girl kept house and cooked. The old man washed up and scrubbed. Boodles knew how to make, not only a shilling, but even the necessary penny go all the way. She was a treasure, good enough for any man; there were no dark spots upon her heart. If she had been made away with one of the best little souls created would have gone back into limbo.