one of his smaller
microscopes and Halibut's monograph sent down from London. He thought
that perhaps if he could get up a vigorous quarrel with Halibut, he
might be able to begin life afresh and forget Pawkins. And very soon
he was hard at work, in his habitual strenuous fashion, at these
microscopic denizens of the way-side pool.

It was on the third day of the diatoms that Hapley became aware of
a novel addition to the local fauna. He was working late at the
microscope, and the only light in the room was the brilliant little
lamp with the special form of green shade. Like all experienced
microscopists, he kept both eyes open. It is the only way to avoid
excessive fatigue. One eye was over the instrument, and bright and
distinct before that was the circular field of the microscope, across
which a brown diatom was slowly moving. With the other eye Hapley saw,
as it were, without seeing[A]. He was only dimly conscious of the
brass side of the instrument, the illuminated part of the table-cloth,
a sheet of note-paper, the foot of the lamp, and the darkened room
beyond.

[Footnote A: The reader unaccustomed to microscopes may easily
understand this by rolling a newspaper in the form of a tube and
looking through it at a book, keeping the other eye open.]

Suddenly his attention drifted from one eye to the other. The
table-cloth was of the material called tapestry by shopmen, and rather
brightly coloured. The pattern was in gold, with a small amount of
crimson and pale blue upon a greyish ground. At one point the pattern
seemed displaced, and there was a vibrating movement of the colours at
this point.

Hapley suddenly moved his head back and looked with both eyes. His
mouth fell open with astonishment.

It was a large moth or butterfly; its wings spread in butterfly
fashion!

It was strange it should be in the room at all, for the windows were
closed. Strange that it should not have attracted his attention when
fluttering to its present position. Strange that it should match the
table-cloth. Stranger far that to him, Hapley, the great entomologist,
it was altogether unknown. There was no delusion. It was crawling
slowly towards the foot of the lamp.

"_Genus novo_, by heavens! And in England!" said Hapley, staring.

Then he suddenly thought of Pawkins. Nothing would have maddened
Pawkins more.... And Pawkins was dead!

Something about the head and body of the insect became singularly
suggestive of Pawkins, j