“I would,” said William with an air of stern purpose.
*****
The Collection of Insects was almost complete. The show was to be held that afternoon.
The audience had been ordered to attend and bring their halfpennies. The audience had agreed, but had reserved to itself the right not to contribute the halfpennies if the exhibition was not considered worth it.
“Well,” was William’s bitter comment on hearing this, “I shouldn’t have thought there was so many mean people in the world.”
He had taken a great deal of trouble with his collection. He had that very morning been driven out of Miss Euphemia Barney’s garden by Miss Euphemia herself, though he had only entered in pursuit of a yellow butterfly that he felt was indispensable to the collection.
Miss Euphemia Barney was the local poetess and the leader of the intellectual life of the village. Miss Euphemia Barney was the President of the Society for the Encouragement of Higher Thought. The members of the society discussed Higher Thought in all its branches once every fortnight. At the end of the discussion Miss Euphemia Barney would read her poems.
Euphemia Barney’s poems had never been published. Miss Euphemia said that in these days of worldliness and money-worship she would set an example of unworldliness and scorn for money. “I think it best,” she would say, “that I should not publish.”
As a matter of fact she had the authority of several publishers for the statement. She disliked William more than anyone else she had ever known—and she said that she knew just what sort of a woman Miss Fairlow was as soon as she heard that Miss Fairlow had “taken to” William.
Miss Fairlow had only recently come to live at the village. Miss Fairlow was a real, live, worldly, money-worshipping author who published a book every year and made a lot of money out of it. When she came to live in the village Miss Euphemia Barney was prepared to patronise her in spite of this fact, and even asked her to join the Society for the Encouragement of Higher Thought.