But alas, I had but scant time to devote to this enchanting and engrossing study, which, properly pursued, will fill a man’s days to the brim.  I gathered my specimens as I could and classified and mounted them as it pleased God—­until the advent of John Flint.

Now, I must, with great reluctance, here set down the plain truth that he, too, looked upon me at first with amaze not unmixed with rage and contempt.  Most caterpillars, you understand, feed upon food of their own arbitrary choosing; and when they are in captivity one must procure this particular aliment if one hopes to rear them.

Slippy McGee feeding bugs! It was about as hideous and devil-born a contretemps as, say, putting a belted earl to peel potatoes or asking an archbishop to clean cuspidors.  The man boiled with offended dignity and outraged pride.  One could actually see him swell.  He had expected something quite different, and this apparently offensive triviality disgusted and shocked him.  I could see myself falling forty thousand fathoms in his esteem, and I think he would have incontinently turned his back upon me save for his promise to Mary Virginia.

It is true that many of the caterpillars are ugly and formidable, poor things, to the uninitiated eye, which fails to recognize under this uncomely disguise the crowned and glorious citizens of the air.  I had just then a great Cecropia, an able-bodied green gentleman armed with twelve thorn-like, sizable horns, and wearing, along with other agreeable adornments, three yellow and four red arrangements like growths of dwarf cactus plants on the segments behind his hard round green head.

Mr. Flint, with an ejaculation of horror, backed off on one crutch and clubbed the other.

“My God!” said he, “Kill it!  Kill it!” I saved my green friend in the nick of time.  The man, with staring eyes, looked from me to the caterpillar; then he leaned over and watched it, in grim silence.

He knotted his forehead, made slits of his eyes, gulped, screwed his mouth into the thin red line of deadly determination, and with every nerve braced, even as a martyr braces himself for the stake or the sword, put out his hand, up which the formidable-looking worm walked leisurely.  Death not immediately resulting from this daring act, he controlled his shudders and breathed easier.  The worm became less and less terrifying; no longer appearing, say, the size of the boa constrictor.  A few moments of this harmless meandering about Mr. Flint’s hand and arm, and of a sudden he wore his true colors of an inoffensive and law-abiding larva, anxious only to attend strictly to his own legitimate business, the Gargantuan feeding of himself into the pupa from which he would presently emerge one of the most magnificent of native moths.  Gingerly Mr. Flint picked him up between thumb and fore-finger, and as gingerly dropped him back into the breeding-cage.  He squared his shoulders, wiped his brow, and drew a long whistling breath.