“But,” said Flint, and a gleam of hope irradiated his stricken face, “but I don’t think I’ve got the clothes to wear to parties.  And I really can’t afford to spend any more money right now, either.  I spent a lot on that old 1797 Abbot & Smith’s ’Natural History of the Rarer Lepidopterous Insects of Georgia.’  It cost like the dickens, although I really got it for about half what it’s worth.  I had to take it when I got the chance, and I’d be willing to wear gunny-sacking for a year to pay for those plates!  I need them:  I want them.  But I don’t need a party.  I don’t want a party!  Madame, don’t, don’t make me go to any party!”

“Nonsense!” said my mother.  “Clothes, indeed!  I shouldn’t worry about clothes, if I were you, John Flint.  You came into this world knowing exactly what to wear and how to wear it.  Why, you have an air!  That is a very great mercy, let me tell you, and one not always vouchsafed to the deserving, either.”

“I have a cage full of grubs—­most awfully particular grubs, and they’ve got to be watched like a sick kid with the—­with the whatever it is sick kids have, anyhow.  Why, if I were to leave those grubs one whole afternoon—­”

“You just let me see a single solitary grub have the temerity to hatch himself out that one afternoon, that’s all!  They have all the rest of their nasty little lives to hatch out!”

“Besides, there’s a boy lives about five miles from here, and he’s likely to bring me word any minute about something I simply have to have—­”

“I want to see that boy!” She pointed her small forefinger at him, with the effect of a pistol leveled at his head.

“You are coming to my affair!” said she, sternly.  “If you have no regard whatsoever for Mary Virginia and me, you shall have some for yourself; if you have none for yourself, then you shall have some for us!”

This took the last puff of wind from the Butterfly Man’s sails.

“All right!” he gulped, and committed himself irremediably.  “I—­I’ll be right here.  You say so, and of course I’ve got to!”

“Of course you will,” said my mother, smiling at him charmingly.  “I knew I had only to present the matter in its proper light, and you’d see it at once.  You are so sensible, John Flint.  It’s such a comfort, when the gentlemen of one’s household are so amenable to reason, and so ready to stand by one!”

Having said her say, and gotten her way—­as she was perfectly sure she would—­Madame left the gentlemen of her household to their own reflections and devices.

“Parson!” The Butterfly Man seemed to come out of a trance.  “Remember the day you made me let a caterpillar crawl up my hand?”

“Yes, my son.”

“Parson, there’s a horrible big teaparty crawling up my pants’ leg this minute!”

“Just keep still,” I couldn’t help laughing at him, “and it will come down after awhile without biting you.  Remember, you got used to the others in no time.”