"How do you know? Hang it! A worm is always turning. There's no telling when he begins. He crawls in curves."
"Oh, rats!" was Perkins's only comment.
"Rats, eh? Skinner asked for a raise, did n't he? He did n't get it, did he? Right on top of it he comes out in gay attire—both of 'em! You ought to have seen 'em, Perk. No hand-me-down! The real thing!" McLaughlin paused longer than usual. He looked troubled. "Say, Perk," he said presently, "somehow, I'm afraid this particular worm of ours is pluming for flight."
"That's a dainty metaphor, Mac, but it's a little mixed."
McLaughlin glared at Perkins. He hated these petty corrections.
"Ain't a caterpillar a worm, my Harvard prodigy?"
"I grant you that."
"Don't he turn into a butterfly? Don't he plume for flight?"
McLaughlin nailed each successive argument with a bang of his fist on the desk.
"Ain't Skinner getting to be a social butterfly? Get the connection? My metaphor may be mixed, as you say,—which I don't understand,—but my logic is O.K. Say, ain't it?"