In the new white marble Administration Building at Bronx Park, my private
office separated the offices of Dr. Silas Quint and Professor Boomly; and
it had been arranged so on purpose, because of the increasingly frequent
personal misunderstanding between these two celebrated entomologists.
It was very plain to me that a crisis in this quarrel was rapidly
approaching.
A bitter animosity had for some months existed on both sides, born of the
most intense professional jealousy. They had been friends for years. No
unseemly rivalry disturbed this friendship as long as it was merely a
question of collecting, preparing, and mounting for exhibition the vast
numbers of butterflies and moths which haunt this insectivorous earth.
Even their zeal in the eternal hunt for new and undescribed species had
not made them enemies.
I am afraid that my suggestion for the construction of a great glass
flying-cage for _living_ specimens of moths and butterflies started the
trouble between these hitherto godly and middle-aged men. That, and the
Carnegie Educational Medal were the causes which began this deplorable
affair.
Various field collectors, employed by both Quint and Boomly, were always
out all over the world foraging for specimens; also, they were constantly
returning with spoils from every quarter of the globe.
Now, to secure rare and beautiful living specimens of butterflies and
moths for the crystal flying-cage was a serious and delicate job. Such
tropical insects could not survive the journey of several months from
the wilds of Australia, India, Asia, Africa, or the jungles of South
America--nor could semi-tropical species endure the captivity of a few
weeks or even days, when captured in the West Indies, Mexico, or Florida.
Only our duller-coloured, smaller, and hardier native species tolerated
capture and exhibition.
Therefore, the mode of procedure which I suggested was for our field
expeditions to obtain males and females of the same species of butterfly
or moth, mate them, and, as soon as any female deposited her eggs, place
the tiny pearl-like eggs in cold storage to retard their hatching, which
normally occurs, in the majority of species, within ten days or two
weeks.
This now was the usual mode of procedure followed by the field collectors
employed by Dr. Quint and Professor Boomly. And not only were the eggs
of various butterflies and moths so packed for transportation, but a
sufficient store of their various native food-plants was also preserved,
where such food-plants could not be procured in the United States. So
when the eggs arrived at Bronx Park, and were hatched there in due time,
the young caterpillars had plenty of nourishment ready for them in cold
storage.
Might I not, legitimately, have expected the Carnegie Educational
Medal for all this? I have never received it. I say this without
indignation--even without sorrow. I merely make the statement.
Yet, my system was really a very beautiful system; a tiny batch of eggs
would arrive from Ceylon, or Sumatra, or Africa; when taken from cold
storage and placed in the herbarium they would presently hatch; the
caterpillars were fed with their accustomed food-plant--a few leaves
being taken from cold storage every day for them--they would pass through
their three or four moulting periods, cease feeding in due time,
transform into the chrysalis stage, and finally appear in all the
splendour and magnificence of butterfly or moth.
The great glass flying-cage was now alive with superb moths and
butterflies, flitting, darting, fluttering among the flowering bushes
or feeding along the sandy banks of the brook which flowed through
the flying-cage, bordered by thickets of scented flowers. And it was
like looking at a meteoric shower of winged jewels, where the huge
metallic-blue _Morphos_ from South America flapped and sailed, and the
orange and gold and green _Ornithoptera_ from Borneo pursued their
majestic, bird-like flight--where big, glittering _Papilios_ flashed
through the bushes or alighted nervously to feed for a few moments
on jasmine and phlox, and where the slowly flopping _Heliconians_ winged
their way amid the denser tangles of tropical vegetation.
Nothing like this flying-cage had ever before been seen in New York;
thousands and thousands of men, women, and children thronged the lawn
about the flying-cage all day long.
By night, also, the effect was wonderful; the electric lights among the
foliage broke out; the great downy-winged moths, which had been asleep
all day while the butterflies flitted through the sunshine, now came out
to display their crimson or peacock-spotted wings, and the butterflies
folded their wings and went to bed for the night.
The public was enchanted, the authorities of the Bronx proud and
delighted; all apparently was happiness and harmony. Except that nobody
offered me the Carnegie medal.
I was sitting one morning in my office, which, as I have said, separated
the offices of Dr. Quint and Professor Boomly, when there came a loud
rapping on my door, and, at my invitation, Dr. Quint bustled in--a
little, meagre, excitable, near-sighted man with pointed mustaches and
a fleck of an imperial smudging his lower lip.
"Last week," he began angrily, "young Jones arrived from Singapore
bringing me the eggs of _Erebia astarte_, the great Silver Moon
butterfly. Attempts to destroy them have been made. Last night I left
them in a breeding-cage on my desk. Has anybody been in there?"
"I don't know," I said. "What has happened?"
"I found an ichneumon fly in the cage yesterday!" he shouted; "and this
morning the eggs have either shrunk to half their size or else the eggs
of another species have been secretly substituted for them and the Silver
Moon eggs stolen! Has _he_ been in there?"
"Who?" I asked, pretending to misunderstand.
"_He!_" demanded Quint fiercely. "If he has I'll kill him some day."
_He_ meant his one-time friend, Dr. Boomly. Alas!
"For heaven's sake, why are you two perpetually squabbling?" I asked
wearily. "You used to be inseparable friends. Why can't you make up?"
"Because I've come to know him. That's why! I have unmasked this--this
Borgia--this Machiavelli--this monster of duplicity! Matters are
approaching a point where something has got to be done short of murder.
I've stood all his envy and jealousy and cheap imputations and hints and
contemptible innuendoes that I'm going to--"
He stopped short, glaring at the doorway, which had suddenly been
darkened by the vast bulk of Professor Boomly--a figure largely abdominal
but majestic--like the massive butt end of an elephant. For the rest, he
had a rather insignificant and peevish face and a melancholy mustache
that usually looked damp.
"Mr. Smith," he said to me, in his thin, high, sarcastic voice--a voice
incongruously at variance with his bulk--"has anybody had the infernal
impudence to enter my room and nose about my desk?"
"Yes, _I_ have!" replied Quint excitedly. "I've been in your room. What
of it? What about it?"
Boomly permitted his heavy-lidded eyes to rest on Quint for a moment,
then, turning to me:
"I want a patent lock put on my door. Will you speak to Professor
Farrago?"
"I want one put on mine, too!" cried Quint. "I want a lock put on my door
which will keep envious, dull-minded, mentally broken-down, impertinent,
and fat people out of my office!"
Boomly flushed heavily:
"Fat?" he repeated, glaring at Quint. "Did you say 'fat?'"
"Yes, fat--intellectually and corporeally fat! I want that kind of
individual kept out. I don't trust them. I'm afraid of them. Their minds
are atrophied. They are unmoral, possibly even criminal! I don't want
them in my room snooping about to see what I have and what I'm doing. I
don't want them to sneak in, eaten up with jealousy and envy, and try to
damage the eggs of the Silver Moon butterfly because the honour and glory
of hatching them would probably procure for me the Carnegie Educational
Medal--"
"Why, you little, dried-up, protoplasmic atom!" burst out Boomly, his
face suffused with passion, "Are you insinuating that I have any designs
on your batch of eggs?"
"It's my belief," shouted Quint, "that you want that medal yourself, and
that you put an ichneumon fly in my breeding-cage in hopes it would sting
the eggs of the Silver Moon."
"If you found an ichneumon fly there," retorted Boomly, "you probably
hatched it in mistake for a butterfly!" And he burst into a peal of
contemptuous laughter, but his little, pig-like eyes under the heavy lids
were furious.
"I now believe," said Quint, trembling with rage, "that you have
criminally substituted a batch of common _Plexippus_ eggs for the Silver
Moon eggs I had in my breeding-cage! I believe you are sufficiently
abandoned to do it!"
"Ha! Ha!" retorted Boomly scornfully. "I don't believe you ever
had anything in your breeding-cage except a few clothes moths and
cockroaches!"
Quint began to dance:
"You _did_ take them!" he yelled; "and you left me a bunch of milkweed
butterflies' eggs! Give me my eggs or I shall violently assault you!"
"Assault your grandmother!" remarked Boomly, with unscientific brevity.
"What do you suppose I want of your ridiculous eggs? Haven't I enough
eggs of _Heliconius salome_ hatching to give me the Carnegie medal if
I want it?"
"The Silver Moon eggs are unique!" cried Quint. "You know it! You know
that if they hatch, pupate, and become perfect insects that I shall
certainly be awarded--"
"You'll be awarded the Matteawan medal," remarked Boomly with venom.
Quint ran at him with a half-suppressed howl, his momentum carrying him
halfway up Professor Boomly's person. Then, losing foothold, he fell to
the floor and began to kick in the general direction of Professor Boomly.
It was a sorrowful sight to see these two celebrated scientists panting,
mauling, scuffling and punching each other around the room, tables and
chairs and scrapbaskets flying in every direction, and I mounted on the
window-sill horrified, speechless, trying to keep clear of the revolving
storm centre.
"Where are my Silver Moon eggs!" screamed Dr. Quint. "Where are my eggs
that Jones brought me from Singapore--you entomological robber! You've
got 'em somewhere! If you don't give 'em up I'll find means to destroy
you!"
"You insignificant pair of maxillary palpi!" bellowed Professor Boomly,
galloping after Dr. Quint as he dodged around my desk. "I'll pull off
those antennæ you call whiskers if I can get hold of em--"
Dr. Quint's threatened mustaches bristled as he fled before the
elephantine charge of Professor Boomly--once again around my desk, then
out into the hall, where I heard the door of his office slam, and Boomly,
gasping, panting, breathing vengeance outside, and vowing to leave Quint
quite whiskerless when he caught him.
It was a painful scene for scientists to figure in or to gaze upon.
Profoundly shocked and upset, I locked up the anthropological department
offices and went out into the Park, where the sun was shining and a
gentle June wind stirred the trees.
Too completely upset to do any more work that day, I wandered about amid
the gaily dressed crowds at hazard; sometimes I contemplated the monkeys;
sometimes gazed sadly upon the seals. They dashed and splashed and raced
round and round their tank, or crawled up on the rocks, craned their wet,
sleek necks, and barked--houp! houp! houp!
For luncheon I went over to the Rolling Stone Restaurant. There was a
very pretty girl there--an unusually pretty girl--or perhaps it was one
of those days on which every girl looked unusually pretty to me. There
are such days.
Her voice was exquisite when she spoke. She said:
"We have, today, corned beef hash, fried ham and eggs, liver and
bacon--" but let that pass, too.
I took my tea very weak; by that time I learned that her name was Mildred
Case; that she had been a private detective employed in a department
store, and that her duties had been to nab wealthy ladies who forgot to
pay for objects usually discovered in their reticules, bosoms, and
sometimes in their stockings.
But the confinement of indoor work had been too much for Mildred Case,
and the only outdoor job she could find was the position of lady
waitress in the rustic Rolling Stone Inn.
She was very, very beautiful, or perhaps it was one of those days--but
let that pass, too.
"You are the great Mr. Percy Smith, Curator of the Anthropological
Department, are you not?" she asked shyly.
"Yes," I said modestly; and, to slightly rebuke any superfluous pride in
me, I paraphrased with becoming humility, pointing upward: "but remember,
Mildred, there is One greater than I."
"Mr. Carnegie?" she nodded innocently. That was true, too. I let it go at
that.
We chatted: she mentioned Professor Boomly and Dr. Quint, gently
deploring the rupture of their friendship. Both gentlemen, in common with
the majority of the administration personnel, were daily customers at the
Rolling Stone Inn. I usually took my lunch from my boarding-house to my
office, being too busy to go out for mere nourishment.
That is why I had hitherto missed Mildred Case.
"Mildred," I said, "I do not believe it can be wholesome for a man to eat
sandwiches while taking minute measurements of defunct monkeys. Also, it
is not a fragrant pastime. Hereafter I shall lunch here."
"It will be a pleasure to serve you," said that unusually--there I go
again! It was an unusually beautiful day in June. Which careful, exact,
and scientific statement, I think ought to cover the subject under
consideration.
After luncheon I sadly selected a five-cent cigar; and, as I hesitated,
lingering over the glass case, undecided still whether to give full rein
to this contemplated extravagance, I looked up and found her beautiful
grey eyes gazing into mine.
"What gentle thoughts are yours, Mildred?" I said softly.
"The cigar you have selected," she murmured, "is fly-specked."
Deeply touched that this young girl should have cared--that she should
have expressed her solicitude so modestly, so sweetly, concerning the
maculatory condition of my cigar, I thanked her and purchased, for the
same sum, a packet of cigarettes.
That was going somewhat far for me. I had never in all my life even
dreamed of smoking a cigarette. To a reserved, thoughtful, and scientific
mind there is, about a packet of cigarettes, something undignified,
something vaguely frolicsome.
When I paid her for them I felt as though, for the first time in my life,
I had let myself go.
Oddly enough, in this uneasy feeling of gaiety and abandon, a curious
sensation of exhilaration persisted.
We had quite a merry little contretemps when I tried to light my
cigarette and the match went out, and then _she_ struck another match,
and we both laughed, and _that_ match was extinguished by her breath.