is business," he smiled at me quizzically. "Not that one
can't get along without it." The swift fingers paused for a fraction
of a second to give a steel drill an affectionate pat. "I used to know
one of the best ever, who never used anything but a particular drill,
a pet bit, and his ear. Somebody snitched though, so the last I heard
of him he was doing a twenty-year stretch. Pity, too. He was an artist
in his line, that fellow. And his taste in neckties I have never seen
equaled." The Butterfly Man's voice, evenly pitched and pleasantly
modulated, a cultivated voice, was quite casual.

He gathered his tools together and replaced them in the old worn case.
"Wonder if that safe is a side-bolt?" he mused. "Most likely. I dare
say it's only the average combination. A one-armed yegg could open
most of the boxes in this town with a tin button-hook. Anyhow, it
would have to be a new-laid lock _I_ couldn't open. If he's left the
letters in the safe we're all right--so here's hoping he has. I
certainly don't want to go to his room unless I have to. Hunter's not
the sort to sit on his hands, and I'm not feeling what you'd call real
amiable."

A glance at his face, with little glinting devil-lights shining far
back in his eyes, set me to babbling:

"Oh, no, no, no, no, that would never do! God forbid that you should
go to his rooms! He must have left them in the safe! He had to leave
them in the safe!"

"Sure he's left them in the safe: why shouldn't he?" he made light of
my palpable fears. Slipping into his gray overcoat, he pulled on his
felt hat, thrust his hands into his wellworn dogskin gloves, and
picked up the package. Nobody in the world ever looked less like a
criminal than this brown-faced, keen-eyed man with his pleasant
bearing. Why, this was John Flint, the kindly bug-hunter all Appleboro
loved, "that good and kind and Christian man, our brother John Flint,
sometimes known as the Butterfly Man."

"Now, don't you worry any at all, parson," he was saying. "There's
nothing to be afraid of. I'll take care of myself, and I'll get those
letters if they're in existence. I've got to get them. What else was I
born for, I'd like to know?"

The question caught me like a lash across the face.

"You were born," I said violently, "to win an honored name, to do a
work of inestimable value. And you are deliberately and quixotically
risking it, and I allow you to risk it, because a girl's happiness
hangs in the balance! If