d that--what with the worms an'
spiders--an' he kicked so hard the teacher swapped 'round."

"Yes; well--er--extraordinary, extraordinary--very!--so it is,"
murmured the stranger, backing toward the door. The next moment he was
out on the street asking the first person he met for the way to George
Marvin's.

On Tuesday night a second stranger stopped at the hotel and asked where
he could find Professor Marvin. Jared, Seth, and Squire Fletcher were
there as before; but this time their derisive stories--such as they
managed to tell--fell on deaf ears. The stranger signed his name with
a flourish, engaged his room, laughed good-naturedly at the three
men--and left them still talking.

On Wednesday two more strangers arrived, and on Thursday, another one.
All, with varying manner but unvarying promptitude, called for
Professor George Marvin.

Jared, Seth, and the Squire were dumfounded. Their mystification
culminated in one grand chorus of amazement when, on Friday, the Squire
came to the hotel hugging under his arm a daily newspaper.

"Just listen to this!" he blurted out, banging his paper down on the
desk and spreading it open with shaking hands. As he read, he ran his
finger down the column, singling out a phrase here and there, and
stumbling a little over unfamiliar words.

The recent ento-mo-logical discoveries of Professor George Marvin have
set the scientific world in a flurry. . . . Professor Marvin is now
unanimously conceded to be the greatest entomologist living. He knows
his Hex-a-poda and Myri-a-poda as the most of us know our
alphabet. . . . The humble home of the learned man has become a Mecca,
toward which both great and small of the scientific world are bending
eager steps. . . . The career of Marvin reads like a romance, and he
has fought his way to his present enviable position by sheer grit, and
ability, having had to combat with all the narrow criticism and
misconceptions usual in the case of a progressive thinker in a small
town. Indeed, it is said that even now his native village fails to
recognize the honor that is hers.

"Jehoshaphat!" exclaimed Seth Wilber faintly.

Fletcher folded the paper and brought his fist down hard upon it.

"There's more--a heap more," he cried excitedly.

"But how--what--" stammered Jared, whose wits were slow on untrodden
paths.

"It's old Marvin's son--don't you see?" interrupted Squire Fletcher
impatiently. "He 's big!--famous!"

"'Famous