Nothing like this flying-cage had ever before been seen in New York;
thousands and thousands of men, women, and children thronged the lawn
about the flying-cage all day long.
By night, also, the effect was wonderful; 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.
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