"Who are you?" 
"Maya, of the nation of bees." 
"I'm glad to hear it. I have nothing against the bees.-- Why are you sitting about? Bees don't usually sit about. Have you been sitting there long?" 
"I slept here." 
"Indeed!" There was a note of suspicion in Bobbie's voice. 
"I hope you slept well, _very_ well. Did you just wake up?" 
"Yes," said Maya, who had shrewdly guessed that Bobbie would not like her having overheard his conversation with Effie, the cricket, and did not want to hurt his feelings again. 
Bobbie ran hither and thither trying to look up and see Maya. 
"Wait," he said. "If I raise myself on my hind legs and lean against that blade of grass I'll be able to see you, and you'll be able to look into my eyes. You want to, don't you?" 
"Why, I do indeed. I'd like to very much." 
Bobbie found a suitable prop, the stem of a buttercup. The flower tipped a little to one side so that Maya could see him perfectly as he raised himself on his hind legs and looked up at her. She thought he had a nice, dear, friendly face--but not so very young any more and cheeks rather too plump. He bowed, setting the buttercup a-rocking, and introduced himself: 
"Bobbie, of the family of rose-beetles." 
Maya had to laugh to herself. She knew very well he was not a rose-beetle; he was a dung-beetle. But she passed the matter over in silence, not caring to mortify him. 
"Don't you mind the rain?" she asked. 
"Oh, no. I'm accustomed to the rain--from the roses, you know. It's usually raining there." 
Maya thought to herself: 
"After all I must punish him a little for his brazen lies. He's so frightfully vain." 
"Bobbie," she said with a sly smile, "what sort of a hole is that one there, under the leaf?" 
Bobbie started. 
"A hole? A hole, did you say? There are very many holes round here. It's probably just an ordinary hole. You have no idea how many holes there are in the ground." 
Bobbie had hardly uttered the last word when something dreadful happened. In his eagerness to appear indifferent he had lost his balance and toppled over. Maya heard a despairing shriek, and the next instant saw the beetle lying flat on his back in the grass, his arms and legs waving pitifully in the air. 
"I'm done for," he wailed, "I'm done for. I can't get back on my feet again. I'll never be able to get back on my feet again. I'll die. I'll die in this position. Have you ever heard of a worse fate!" 
He carried on so that he did not hear Maya trying to comfort him. And he kept making efforts to touch the ground with his feet. But each time he'd painfully get hold of a bit of earth, it would give way, and he'd fall over again on his high half-sphere of a back. The case looked really desperate, and Maya was honestly concerned; he was already quite pale in the face and his cries 

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