Books with title Save the Beetles!

'No room!—Full up!' He banged the door in my face. That was the final blow. To have tramped about all day looking for work; to have begged even for a job which would give me money enough to buy a little food; and to have tramped and to have begged in vain,—that was bad. But, sick at heart, depressed in mind and in body, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, to have been compelled to pocket any little pride I might have left, and solicit, as the penniless, homeless tramp which indeed I was, a night's lodging in the casual ward,— and to solicit it in vain!—that was worse. Much worse. About as bad as bad could be. I stared, stupidly, at the door which had just been banged in my face. I could scarcely believe that the thing was possible. I had hardly expected to figure as a tramp; but, supposing it conceivable that I could become a tramp, that I should be refused admission to that abode of all ignominy, the tramp's ward, was to have attained a depth of misery of which never even in nightmares I had dreamed. As I stood wondering what I should do, a man slouched towards me out of the shadow of the wall. 'Won't 'e let yer in?' 'He says it's full.' 'Says it's full, does 'e? That's the lay at Fulham,—they always says it's full. They wants to keep the number down.' I looked at the man askance. His head hung forward; his hands were in his trouser pockets; his clothes were rags; his tone was husky. 'Do you mean that they say it's full when it isn't,—that they won't let me in although there's room?' 'That's it,—bloke's a-kiddin' yer.' 'But, if there's room, aren't they bound to let me in?' 'Course they are,—and, blimey, if I was you I'd make 'em. Blimey I would!' He broke into a volley of execrations. 'But what am I to do?' 'Why, give 'em another rouser—let 'em know as you won't be kidded!' I hesitated; then, acting on his suggestion, for the second time I rang the bell. The door was flung wide open, and the grizzled pauper, who had previously responded to my summons, stood in the open doorway. Had he been the Chairman of the Board of Guardians himself he could not have addressed me with greater scorn. 'What, here again! What's your little game? Think I've nothing better to do than to wait upon the likes of you?' 'I want to be admitted.' 'Then you won't be admitted!' 'I want to see someone in authority.' 'Ain't yer seein' someone in authority?' 'I want to see someone besides you,—I want to see the master.' 'Then you won't see the master!' He moved the door swiftly to; but, prepared for such a manoeuvre, I thrust my foot sufficiently inside to prevent his shutting it. I continued to address him.

Richard Marsh (1857 –1915) was the pseudonym of the English author born Richard Bernard Heldmann. A best-selling and prolific author of the late 19th century and the Edwardian period, Marsh is best known now for his supernatural thriller novel The Beetle, which was published the same year as Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), and was initially even more popular. The Beetle remained in print until 1960. In the book a polymorphous Ancient Egyptian entity seeks revenge on a British Member of Parliament.

The Beetle (or The Beetle: A Mystery) is an 1897 horror novel by the British writer Richard Marsh, in which a polymorphous Ancient Egyptian entity seeks revenge on a British Member of Parliament. It initially out-sold Bram Stoker's similar horror story Dracula, which appeared the same year. The Beetle is about about a mysterious oriental figure who pursues a British politician to London, where he wreaks havoc with his powers of hypnosis and shape-shifting. Marsh's novel is of a piece with other sensational turn-of-the-century fictions such as Stoker's Dracula, George du Maurier's Trilby, and Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu novels.

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