Part 15

On his return from his honeymoon, Hervey Deyo threw himself into his bird labors at the Museum with energy; he was a bird man, even a first-class bird man, and so far his ambition was gratified; but it still burned with a hot unappeased flame. He wanted to be the biggest bird man in the world. However, after his marriage he permitted himself certain digressions from the relentless pursuit of this aim. There was a constant demand for him socially and, as Mina was fond of teas and parties and bridge and balls, he found himself giving rather less time to his birds than formerly. He was by no means averse to a measure of social life.

“A great scientist can afford to have his human side,” he assured himself.

Wherever he went with Mina, be it tea, party, bridge, or ball, he was invariably pressed to give his imitation of a bee. He would bow; he would let them insist a bit; invariably he gave it.

“_Bzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzrf!_”

No stranger ever came to the city who did not, sooner or later, hear “that screamingly funny fellow, Deyo, and his perfectly killing imitation of a bee.” His fame spread.

He had been married a number of years and had a child or two when he came home one evening visibly excited.

“My dear,” he called to his wife, his voice full of excitement tinged with awe, “tonight I am to meet Professor Schweeble. He just came to town. Think of it! Karl Humperdinck Schweeble!”

“Schweeble?” said Mina, blankly.

“You don’t mean to say you never heard of Schweeble!”

“I’m afraid not.”

“But I’ve spoken of him score of times.”

“Oh, perhaps you have,” she said, yawning. “I thought he was a bird.”

“Why, Schweeble is the biggest bird man in the world,” he exclaimed. “It will be a big night in ornithology when Schweeble and Deyo shake hands. He must know my work; of course he must. He can’t have missed that great auk monograph and the cuckoo book.”

He was so excited he could hardly tie his dinner tie.

“Schweeble,” he kept repeating, “the great Schweeble. I’ve wanted to meet him all my life. He comes just at the right time, too, just when my paper on the _Pyrrhula Europaea_—bull-finch, my dear—is causing talk.”

“Don’t forget your goloshes,” admonished Mina.

Hervey Deyo, red, proud and flustered, was introduced half an hour later to that great Bohemian savant, Professor Schweeble, at the University Club. Professor Schweeble made him a courtly bow.

“Charmed, Doctor Deyo,” he said. “I haff heard much gebout you.”

Hervey Deyo bowed deeply; he was warm and crimson with pleasure.

“Oh, really?” he murmured.

“Yezz,” said the distinguished visitor, “who haff not heard of Deyo, the bee man?”

Deyo . . . the bee man!

“I?” Hervey Deyo was stunned, “I, a bee man? Oh, no, no, no, no, no!”

“Pardon. Pardon many times. You are but too modest,” said Professor Schweeble, wagging his index finger at the stricken Deyo. “But surely you are that same Deyo who makes the sound like the bee.”

Hervey Deyo stuttered; he would have flung out a denial. But the other scientists had gathered about.

“Oh, come, Deyo,” they urged him. “There’s a good chap. Imitate a bee for the Professor.”

Hervey bit his lips.

“How iss it?” encouraged Professor Schweeble. “_Bzzzzzzz._”

“No,” cried Hervey Deyo, wildly. “Not like that. Like this. ‘_Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzrf!_’”

“Ah, most droll,” said Professor Schweeble. “You have talent; you are a comedian. You should go on the stage.”

Hervey Deyo could not articulate. Professor Schweeble addressed him in the tone Hervey knew so well, for he employed it often; it was the tone of tolerance a scientist adopts to a layman.

“Have you ever taken an interest in birds, Doctor Deyo? There are some fine birds a clever fellow like you could learn to imitate.”

Hervey Deyo did not enjoy that dinner.

He was up at daybreak and he attacked his work with a cold and terrible energy. He stuffed a whole family of bobolinks (_Dolichonyx Dryzivorus_) and dissected snipe (_Gallinago_) by the dozen. He sat up till his eyes ached writing a masterly treatise on the habits and home life of the adult pelican (_Pelecanus_).

“Deyo, the bee man, eh,” his lips kept saying. “I’ll show ’em who’s a bee man. I’ll show ’em.”

But he found it impossible to withdraw from social life; the adulation he received as the most perfect imitator of a bee extant had come to be necessary to him; he continued to go out to social functions; he continued to be asked to imitate a bee; he continued to comply. Mina’s smile had less and less of an attentive quality in it; she began to find excuses for not going with him; but he insisted that it was her duty; she could not give him adequate reasons for evading it.

He was forty when he went down to New York to attend a dinner—a very special dinner—of the Ornithological Congress of the World, then in session. For months he worked to prepare a paper that would definitely place him at the head of his science, now that Schweeble was no more. It was on the mental habits of grouse (_Tetraoninae_). He rose to read it, but some bibulous lesser bird man in the rear of the hall called out, “Forget the grouse. Give us the bee.” Others took up the cry.

“Forget the grouse. Give us the bee.”

The whole room took up the cry.

“Forget the grouse. Give us the bee.”

“Yes, yes, the bee. We want the bee. We want the bee. WE WANT THE BEE.”

Ornithologists have their light moods.

He twisted the table-cloth in a great despair; a furious refusal stuck in his throat; habit was stronger than he.

“_Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzrf!_”

They sang “He’s a jolly good fellow which nobody can deny.” A jolly good fellow! It was the last thing in the world Hervey Deyo had ever wanted to be. This, then, was his fame.

He returned to his home city. His house was silent when he entered it. On his desk was a note.

“Dear Hervey:

“I’ve taken the children and gone to live with Mother. I love you as much as ever, but I can not live with a bee. If I should hear you buzz just once more I should go mad Don’t forget to put on your goloshes.

Mina.”

He went out of the house. Deliberately he did not wear his goloshes; it was a slushy night. At seven they took him to the hospital with a severe case of influenza.

In the morning a careless nurse left a newspaper where he could reach it. An item struck his eye.

“Hervey Deyo is dangerously ill in St. Paul’s Hospital. He is the man who can imitate a bee.”

When he read this, Hervey Deyo let the paper slip from his fingers, and sank back on his pillow. When the doctor came in, he found him lying staring at the ceiling. A glance told the doctor that Hervey Deyo had not long to live; the doctor sought to rouse him from his torpor, to fan the flickering flame of his interest; he turned on his professional bedside smile.

“Ah,” said the doctor, “thinking about bees, I’ll wager.”

“No,” Hervey Deyo got out feebly, “not bees.”

“But, surely, I’m not mistaken. You are Deyo, the famous bee man.”

Hervey Deyo struggled to muster up vitality enough to cry, “I’m a bird man.” But he could not.

“Come, now,” said the doctor, genially, “won’t you imitate that bee for me?”

Hervey Deyo tried to glare a negative, but had not the strength.

“I’ve heard so much about it,” said the doctor. “And I’ve never heard you do it, you know.”

On a faint ebb of strength, Hervey Deyo managed to say, “Really?”

“No. Never.”

Hervey Deyo with a final effort gathered together all the little, last strength in him.

“It—goes—like—this.

“_Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzz bzzz bzz bzrf!_”

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

A cover was created for this eBook and is placed in the public domain.