"Come now, Peter, I am not quite so hypercritical as all that. Besides, Tim, with all his noise and brogue, is a thorough gentleman. It is your veneered person I object to. However, Tim may have changed. Meanwhile what about yourself?" "Like Canning's knife-grinder, I have no story to tell. When I left Bedford I went to Cambridge--afterwards came to London. Passed my examinations, walked the hospitals, took my degree, and hearing that a doctor was wanted down at Barnstaple, I went there. For some years I practised with more or less success. Then I retired to give----" "Retired!" interrupted Philip, in surprise. "Have you made your fortune?" "By no means. Country doctors never make fortunes. No! I inherit five hundred a year from my father, and as there is no necessity for me to physic people for a livelihood, I devote myself----" "To sticking pins through unoffending butterflies!" "Now, how did you guess that?" asked the little doctor, in mild surprise. "Easily enough. You had a butterfly and beetle mania at school. If I remember rightly, we rolled you in nettles to cure you of entomology. Boys don't relish scientific urchins. So you are still at it. But five hundred a year and beetles. Peter, you are not ambitious." "No," assented Grench, simply; "I am not at all ambitious. My entomology gives me great pleasure, or why should I not enjoy myself in my own way? Ah, Philip, you do not know what true enjoyment is." "Certainly not--if it's butterflies." "To see one of the Callidryas species for the first time is indeed a pleasure," said Peter, beaming with scientific rapture. "Then the Papilios, the Hesperidæ and the red Timitis----" "Oh, oh!" yawned Philip, stretching himself, "how dry it sounds." "Dry!" echoed Peter, indignantly; "the most fascinating pursuit in the world." Philip looked kindly at the little man who appeared to be so satisfied with his simple pleasures. "Decidedly, Peter, you are a happy person. Come with me on a cruise, and I will introduce you to the paradise of butterflies. Tropical America, Peter, where the insects are like flying flowers. Green butterflies, purple beetles, gilded moths----" "Oh!" cried Peter, opening his eyes with delight, "I should like to go to South America. I would find a peculiar species there, the Heliconidæ. Why, Philip, if only----" "Hark! there's the bell," exclaimed Cassim, rising with alacrity, rather thankful to escape Peter's lecture. "Is it Jack or Tim?" "Tim," said Peter, promptly, "no one else would ring so violently." "Where did ye say they were?" cried a hearty Irish voice half way up the stairs. "That settles it," remarked Philip, comically, as he opened the door; "no two persons can possess such a strong brogue." And Tim it was. Tim, large and burly, roaring like a Bull of Bashan, who hurled himself into the room, and flung himself on Philip's neck. "My dear friend! my dear boy!" he thundered, squeezing Cassim in his athletic embrace, "it's glad I am to see you."