"Particularly," continued my mother, inexorably, "when I have your best interest at heart, too, John Flint! Monsieur the Butterfly Man, you will please to remember that you are a member of my household. You are almost like a son to me. You are the apple of that foolish Armand's eye--do not look so astounded, it is true! Also, you will have a great name some of these days. So far, so good. But--you are making the grievous error of shunning society, particularly the society of women. This is wrong; it makes for queerness, it evolves the 'crank,' it spoils many an otherwise very nice man." Flint sagged in his chair, and clasped and unclasped his hands, which trembled visibly. Madame regarded him without pity, with even a touch of scorn. "Yes, it is indeed high time to reclaim you!" she decided, with the fearsome zeal of the female reformer of a man. "You silly man, you! Have you no proper pride? Have you absolutely no idea of your own worth? Well, then, if you haven't, _I_ have. You _shall_ take your place and play your part!" "But," said Flint, and a gleam of hope irradiated his stricken face, "but I don't think I've got the clothes to wear to parties. And I really can't afford to spend any more money right now, either. I spent a lot on that old 1797 Abbot & Smith's 'Natural History of the Rarer Lepidopterous Insects of Georgia.' It cost like the dickens, although I really got it for about half what it's worth. I had to take it when I got the chance, and I'd be willing to wear gunny-sacking for a year to pay for those plates! I need them: I want them. But I don't need a party. I don't want a party! Madame, don't, don't make me go to any party!" "Nonsense!" said my mother. "Clothes, indeed! I shouldn't worry about clothes, if I were you, John Flint. You came into this world knowing exactly what to wear and how to wear it. Why, you have an air! That is a very great mercy, let me tell you, and one not always vouchsafed to the deserving, either." "I have a cage full of grubs--most awfully particular grubs, and they've got to be watched like a sick kid with the--with the whatever it is sick kids have, anyhow. Why, if I were to leave those grubs one whole afternoon--" "You just let me see a single solitary grub have the temerity to hatch himself out that one afternoon, that's all! They have all the rest of their nasty little lives to hatch out!" "Besides, there's a boy lives about five miles from here, and he's likely to bring me word any minute about something I simply have to have--" "I want to see that boy!" She pointed her small forefinger at him, with the effect of a pistol leveled at his head. "You are coming to my affair!" said she, sternly. "If you have no regard whatsoever for Mary Virginia and me, you shall have some for yourself; if you have none for yourself, then you shall have some for _us!_" This took the last puff of wind from the Butterfly Man's sails.