information of all kinds, the treasures of this wonderful store-house.  He treated me with the kindest courtesy, but I have no reason to feel that I was an exception.  He stood on that threshold, a welcomer of all scholars, for his good nature was no more marked than the comprehensiveness of his information and the dexterity with which without the least delay, he put into the hands of each searcher the needed books.  Perhaps it was an unusual favour that, influenced no doubt, by my good introduction, he took a half-hour out of his busy morning to conduct me himself through the Egyptian collection.  We passed rapidly among statues and hieroglyphics, his abundant knowledge appearing transiently as he touched upon object after object while at the same time in an incisive and witty vein he spoke of America and the events of the day.  Pausing at last before the great scarabaeus of polished syenite whose huge size required a place in the centre of the corridor, he said with a twinkle, “I must tell you a story about this of which one of your countrymen is the hero.  I was walking with him here in the collection and expected from him some expression of awe, but like so many of you Americans, he wouldn’t admit that he saw anything that couldn’t be paralleled in the United States until we stood before the scarabaeus.  Here his mood changed; his face fell, he slowly walked around the scarabaeus three times and then exclaimed, ’It’s the all-firedest, biggest bug I ever saw in all my born days’”!  I palliated patriotically the over-breezy nonchalance of my countryman and thought I had got at the bottom of the joke, but that evening at a little tea I was undeceived.  A small company were present of men and women, talk flowed easily and when it came my turn I told the story of the Yankee and the scarabaeus which I had heard that day.  As I brought out with emphasis the “all-firedest, biggest bug,” I noticed that a frost fell on the mirth, silence reigned for a moment interrupted only by gasps from the ladies.  What impropriety had I committed?  Presently a little man behind the coffee-urn at the far end of the table, whom I had heard was a bit of a scientist, piped up:  “Perhaps the Professor doesn’t know that in England, when we talk about bugs, we mean that cimex which makes intolerable even the most comfortable bed.”  At last I had Dr. Garnett’s story in its full force.

When I explained to Dr. Garnett my errand, an elaborate investigation of an historic figure, said he:  “You must know Samuel Rawson Gardiner, the best living authority for the period of the English Civil War.  Now Dr. Gardiner is peculiar.  His great history of that period as yet takes in nothing later than 1642.  Up to that date he will have all the information and help you generously.  Of the time beyond that date he will have nothing to say, be mute as a dumb man.  He has not finished his investigations and has a morbid caution about making any suggestion based on incomplete data.”  A day or two