Wasps and Men - Page 2

he, not I, provoked it and was the ruffian, as I'm sure he will be
ready to confess if he ever reads this.

But why all this fuss over a wasp's life, and in such circumstances, in
a room full of nervous ladies, in a house where I was a guest? It was
not that I care more for a wasp than for any other living creature--I
don't love them in the St. Francis way; the wasp is not my little
sister; but I hate to see any living creature unnecessarily,
senselessly, done to death. There are other creatures I can see killed
without a qualm--flies, for instance, especially houseflies and the big
blue-bottle; these are, it was formerly believed, the progeny of Satan,
and modern scientists are inclined to endorse that ancient notion. The
wasp is a redoubtable fly-killer, and apart from his merits, he is a
perfect and beautiful being, and there is no more sense in killing him
than in destroying big game and a thousand beautiful wild creatures
that are harmless to man. Yet this habit of killing a wasp is so
common, ingrained as it were, as to be almost universal among us, and
is found in the gentlest and humanest person, and even the most
spiritual-minded men come to regard it as a sort of religious duty and
exercise, as the incident I am going to relate will show.

I came to Salisbury one day to find it full of visitors, but I
succeeded in getting a room in one of the small family hotels. I was
told by the landlord that a congress was being held, got up by the
Society for the pursuit or propagation of Holiness, and that delegates,
mostly evangelical clergymen and ministers of the gospel of all
denominations, with many lay brothers, had come in from all over the
kingdom and were holding meetings every day and all day long at one of
the large halls. The three bedrooms on the same floor with mine, he
said, were all occupied by delegates who had travelled from the extreme
north of England.

In the evening I met these three gentlemen and heard all about their
society and congress and its aim and work from them.

Next morning at about half-past six I was roused from sleep by a
tremendous commotion in the room adjoining mine: cries and shouts,
hurried trampings over the floor, blows on walls and windows and the
crash of overthrown furniture. However, before I could shake my sleep
off and get up to find out the cause, there were shouts of laughter, a
proof that no one had been killed or seriously injured, and I went to
sleep again.

At breakfast we met once more, and I was asked if I had been much
disturbed by the early morning noise and excitement. They proceeded to
explain that a wasp had got into the room of their friend--indicating
the elderly gentleman who had taken the head of the table; and as he