The bees tumbled off in a dense shower,
asking questions to the last; then, sighting the familiar entrance
to the hive, they bustled in without waiting to investigate the
cause of the earthquake.
Lord Dawlish watched them go with a kindly interest.
'It has always been a mystery to me,' he said, 'why they never
seem to think of manhandling the Johnny who does that to them.
They don't seem able to connect cause and effect. I suppose the
only way they can figure it out is that the bottom has suddenly
dropped out of everything, and they are so busy lighting out for
home that they haven't time to go to the root of things. But it's
a ticklish job, for all that, if you're not used to it. I know
when I first did it I shut my eyes and wondered whether they would
bury my remains or cremate them.'
'When you first did it?' Elizabeth was staring at him blankly.
'Have you done it before?'
Her voice shook. Bill met her gaze frankly.
'Done it before? Rather! Thousands of times. You see, I spent a
year on a bee-farm once, learning the business.'
For a moment mortification was the only emotion of which Elizabeth
was conscious. She felt supremely ridiculous. For this she had
schemed and plotted--to give a practised expert the opportunity of
doing what he had done a thousand times before!
And then her mood changed in a flash.
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