Your
remark is tantamount to telling me that I am speaking a falsehood.
But, of course, for all I know, the thing may be some other kind of
flower."
"Let me see it. In the name of the goddess Flora let me see it!"
I began to undo the case. Indeed it was already half-open when two
other gentlemen, who had either overheard some of our conversation or
noted my companion's excited look, edged up to us. I observed that
they also wore orchids in their buttonholes.
"Hullo! Somers," said one of them in a tone of false geniality, "what
have you got there?"
"What has your friend got there?" asked the other.
"Nothing," replied the young man who had been addressed as Somers,
"nothing at all; that is--only a case of tropical butterflies."
"Oh! butterflies," said No. 1 and sauntered away. But No. 2, a keen-
looking person with the eye of a hawk, was not so easily satisfied.
"Let us see these butterflies," he said to me.
"You can't," ejaculated the young man. "My friend is afraid lest the
damp should injure their colours.
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