l; 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 i