“Nor do I,” replied Nervousness. “Let’s go for a little fly.” So they flew slowly away, feeling empty and mistaken, with a sense that the world must be out of joint where there were nearly always two birds to one beetle, and both the birds understood etiquette. And the beetle went on dying. He had not during his previous life been a good beetle. He was strongly built, and his constitution, which had now given way, had always been considered robust. Female beetles had thought him uncommonly handsome; yet with all these gifts he had not been a good beetle; on the contrary he had been extremely immoral. He lay stretched on the sand by the edge of the pathway, enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sunlight. “Mary,” he called, a little querulously, “come out.” It is difficult to understand how the beetle could call without making any noise. It should be remembered, however, that sound is to beetles very much what silence is to us. A certain kind of silence, on the other hand, answers to what we call conversation, and can be varied so as to express all that we can do by changing the tone of the voice. The small female of depressed appearance, who hurried from the shelter of a stone in answer to this summons, quite understood that she had been called querulously. The two unkempt birds should undoubtedly have waited. “Thomas,” said the beetle who had been addressed as Mary, “I think you called me?” “Have you stopped crying?” “Yes, dear; I won’t cry any more, if you don’t like it.” “You know I don’t like it. Have you got any new ideas?” “Well, Thomas, nothing that could be absolutely called new, perhaps; but I remember a little story that my poor dear mother used to----” “Stop!” said Thomas, “you’re a stale, heavy-minded female, and you can get back under the stone. I was going to let you see me die. I shan’t now!” “Do let me stop!” pleaded Mary. “No, I won’t!--stay, what’s that pestilential insect creeping towards us?” “It’s the Dear Friend. He looks small and meagre, but we must not judge from looks, Thomas. Beauty fades.” Thomas surveyed Mary slowly. “It does,” he said. The Dear Friend was so named from his habit of calling indiscriminately on other beetles, and excusing himself on the ground that he wanted to be their dear friend. He lived a very good life, and he wanted other beetles to be good. The want was noble, but he had not sufficient tact to conceal it. Some beetles thought him a bore, and did not care to hear him discuss their sins in his plain way. Others, seeing that he knew so little about this life, thought that he might have unusual knowledge of the next. Beetles, as a class, have a tendency towards mysticism. Mary had a firm belief in the goodness and spirituality of the Dear Friend, although she was dimly conscious that he was not clever. She was very anxious that he should have a few words with the dying Thomas.