to her for my language.

'You're always so extreme,' he fluted reproachfully. 'You forget that
nothing matters except the Idea. Besides, they are this lady's bees.'

He closed the window, and introduced us through it in dumb show; but he
contrived to give the impression that _I_ was the specimen under glass.

A spurt of damp steam saved me from apoplexy. The train had lost
patience at last, and was coming into the station directly beneath me to
see what was the matter. Happy voices sang and heads were thrust out all
along the compartments, but none answered their songs or greetings. She
halted, and the people began to get out. Then they began to get in
again, as their friends in the waiting-rooms advised. All did not catch
the warning, so there was congestion at the doors, but those whom the
bees caught got in first.

Still the bees, more bent on their own business than wanton torture,
kept to the south end of the platform by the bookstall, and that was why
the completely exposed engine-driver at the north end of the train did
not at first understand the hermetically sealed stationmaster when the
latter shouted to him many times to 'get on out o' this.'

'Where are you?' was the reply. 'And what for?'

'It don't matter where I am, an' you'll get what-for in a minute if you
don't shift,' said the stationmaster. 'Drop 'em at Parson's Meadow and
they can walk up over the fields.'

That bare-armed, thin-shirted idiot, leaning out of the cab, took the
stationmaster's orders as an insult to his dignity, and roared at the
shut offices: 'You'll give me what-for, will you? Look 'ere, I'm not in
the 'abit of--' His outstretched hand flew to his neck.... Do you know
that if you sting an engine-driver it is the same as stinging his train?
She starts with a jerk that nearly smashes the couplings, and runs,
barking like a dog, till she is out of sight. Nor does she think about
spilled people and parted families on the platform behind her. I had to
do all that. There was a man called Fred, and his wife Harriet--a
cheery, full-blooded couple--who interested me immensely before they
battered their way into a small detached building, already densely
occupied. There was also a nameless bachelor who sat under a half-opened
umbrella and twirled it dizzily, which was so new a game that I
applauded aloud.

When they had thoroughly cleared the ground, the bees set about making
comb for publication at the bookstall counter. Presently s