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"That's just what it is," said Mr. Freeman. "I expect men learned from wasps how to make paper. For wasps go to work in a very business-like way. They chew up dead and crumbling wood and spread it out smoothly, and when it dries and hardens there is a sheet of paper, all ready to be used as one of the layers for this dry warm nest. Men make paper by grinding up wood or linen rags."
"Steadee steadee-keep her head up, ma'm'selle," he answered, for Guida had steered unsteadily for the instant. "Steadee shale ben! that's right I remember twenty years ago the black wasps they fly on the coast of France like that. Who can tell now?" He shrugged his shoulders.
Amyas rushed along the central gangway, shouting in Spanish, "Freedom to the slaves! death to the masters!" clambered into the forecastle, followed close by his swarm of wasps, and set them so good an example how to use their stings that in three minutes more there was not a Spaniard on board who was not dead or dying. "Let the slaves free!" shouted he. "Throw us a hammer down, men.
Happily, he remembered that there was still one remaining friend, and he cried with dying accents: 'Wasp's-nest, Wasp's-nest, make a sally, Or Drakestail nevermore may rally. Hereupon the scene changes. 'Bs, bs, bayonet them! 'The brave Wasp's-nest rushes out with all his wasps.
The whole bally place will be buzzin' like a nest of wasps till they find out wot the shots meant." "I think it is a good suggestion," came the calm answer, "provided, that is, the launch is in the harbor." "She's just as likely to be there now as later. If she isn't, we must hark back to the first plan. Now, you swabs, all aboard! See to them buckles afore you quit."
After all complaints had been heard, Am-wee-soo the Wasp addressed the council. "'Each creature, said he, 'has the right to live. Our cruel enemies deprive us of our lives which they cannot restore. It is just that they shall be punished. We, the wasps, the bees, and the flies, will send upon men boils and wasting fevers, which shall sap their strength and bring them to their graves.
Some time ago when walking I sat down at noon on a fallen tree-trunk to eat my luncheon, which consisted of a hunk of cake and some bananas. The wind carried the fragrance of the fruit into the adjacent wood, and very soon wasps began to arrive, until there were fifteen or twenty about me.
The enemy knows the probable point of its destination on a particular day, and then, knowing that the regulars cannot halt definitely where it may be chosen to attack, it hovers round the column like wasps. The regulars cannot, from not being accustomed to the work, go clambering over rocks, or beating covers after their foes.
In her prosperous days, when she was the ornament of Loni's band and had attracted men as a ripe pear draws wasps, she had often been at the tavern, and both he and the landlord of The Pike had greeted her cordially, for whoever sought her favour was obliged to order the best and dearest of everything, not only for her and himself, but for a whole tableful of hungry guests.
I have found three dead bees thus entrapped in a single umbel of blossoms, having been exhausted in their struggles for escape; and a search among the flowers at any time will show the frequency of this fatality, the victims including gnats, flies, crane-flies, bugs, wasps, beetles, and small butterflies.
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