And so Frank managed to gradually steer the conversation around to the subject of bug collection. He told of a friend he once had who was "daffy" along that line, and would rather capture some queer looking old night-flying hairy moth, with a death's-head sign on his front, than enjoy the finest supper, or listen to the best play.
That allowed Andy to venture the suggestion that he had taken considerable interest in butterflies himself, and always wanted to see a collection that was worth while. Of course he did not have to explain that the only interest he ever did have in the matter was when, as a very small boy, he used to chase after the fluttering insects as they went from flower to flower, until shown by his mother how cruel it was to destroy the life of such wonderfully beautiful things, that he could not restore again.
Sallie took the bait, Andy knew from the eager light that flashed upon her face. And when he saw her step over to a window, and look quickly down the lane, he turned to his cousin, and made a grimace as much as to say, "See how she fell to my little game, will you, old fellow?"
"Well," said Sallie, flitting back again, "Professor Whitesides hasn't got a very large collection; and the new specimens he gathers day after day he kept in some place, because he has no time just now to do anything with them, he says; but come up with me, and I'll show you the little case he brought with him."
"Sure we will, and I'm glad of the chance to see what valuable butterflies look like," Andy went on to remark.
"He says this little collection is a very rare one, and worth an awfully large sum of money," Sallie went on to remark, in something of a confidential tone, as if getting the boys ready to be surprised when they looked upon the possessions of the industrious professor. "And oh! if you could only hear all the queer things he's been telling us that happened to him in foreign lands, when he was spending ever so much money, and long weary months, finding these very rare specimens. Why, I just stand there, and look at them, and wonder how people can be so foolish, when it seems to me I've seen much prettier butterflies right out there in our fields where the thistles are blooming."
It seemed that the room they had given the wonderful man of science was on the ground floor, and opened off the parlor.
The two boys followed Sallie in, and noted her rather awed manner 5 evidently the professor, whether he turned out to be a fraud or the genuine article, had succeeded in arousing both her admiration and wonder.
The room was plainly yet comfortably furnished, but evidently the professor, like so many other learned savants, did not know such a thing as "order" existed, for things were simply topsy-turvy.
"He just won't let us sweep in here, or do the least thing," explained Sallie, as if she feared the boys would blame her for the looks of the room, "you know, he's so queer, and he says we might lose something that he valued very highly, thinking it was not worth keeping. But here's the little case containing those almost priceless specimens he collected abroad."