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"Hold hard, young gentleman," said Cripps, coolly. "To be sure, he ain't downright sweet on you; but I ain't a-going to have him smashed, mind, all to bits. Well, never mind that. I'll turn back with you, young gentleman, if I may. We're only three miles from Maltby, and maybe you'll honour a poor chap like me by having a look in at the Cockchafer."
He was not exactly a gentleman, for he kept the Cockchafer public-house at Maltby, and often served behind the bar in his own person. Neither was he altogether a reputable person, for he frequently helped himself to an overdose of his own beverages, besides being a sharp hand at billiards, and possessing several packs of cards with extra aces in them.
Perhaps one of them will be found to give chase to the terrible enemy of my crops, the voracious White Worm, the grub of the Cockchafer; perhaps the Hemorrhoidal Scolia, rivalling in size the Garden Scolia and like her, no doubt, requiring a copious diet, will be entered in the insects' "Who's Who" as the destroyer of the Pine-chafer, that magnificent Beetle, flecked with white upon a black or brown ground, who of an evening, during the summer solstice, browses on the foliage of the fir-trees.
Loman kept his promise, and visited Maltby once or twice, becoming each time more familiar with Cripps and his low friends, who made a great deal of him, and flattered him on all possible occasions, so that the boy presently found himself, as he imagined, quite a young hero at the Cockchafer. Meanwhile, naturally, his reading fell behindhand.
At this moment, a great ant attracted the attention of the child towards the lower part of the mountain. An enormous grub of the cockchafer race, a great white worm, rolled himself over, trying to liberate himself and to crush the ants, whose number increased on every side, and who tore off his transparent, soft skin, and pulled him in every direction.
Rowsley threw a daisy at a cockchafer and missed it. "You and I are sons of a parsonage. We shouldn't run off with a married lady because it would be against our principles." His thin brown features were twisted into a faint grimace. Rowsley, like Val, possessed a satirical sense of humour, and gave it freer play than Val did. "It's so difficult to shake off early prejudices.
Among the last to leave are Oliver and Wraysford; they have stayed to dine with the Doctor, and when at last they do turn their backs on the old school it is getting late. Stephen accompanies them down to the station. On the way they pass the well-known Cockchafer. The old board is still there, but a new name is upon it. "Hullo! what's become of Cripps?" asked Wraysford.
If I offer her a Mantis, a Bumble-bee, an Anoxia the equivalent of the common Cockchafer and other dishes probably unknown to her race, she accepts all and any, large and small, thin-skinned and horny-skinned, that which goes afoot and that which takes winged flight. She is omnivorous, she preys on everything, down to her own kind, should the occasion offer.
There she sat and wept, because she was so ugly that the cockchafer would have nothing to do with her; and yet she was the most beautiful creature imaginable, so soft and delicate, like the loveliest rose-leaf. The whole summer poor little Thumbelina lived alone in the great wood.
Yesterday, for instance, if I hadn't been a cockchafer, a doll's teapot, a garden seat, a rose tree and a nursery table, I shouldn't know as much as I do about you and the Lady Emmelina." "Then please tell me what I must do in order to find the Lady Emmelina," begged the Prince. "By all means," said the grasshopper, cheerfully.
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