iggest ever found. It measures
twenty-four inches across the wings, petals I think he called them, and
about a foot across the back part."

"Twenty-four inches across the petals and a foot across the dorsal
sepal!" said the young man in a kind of gasp, "and a Cypripedium! Sir,
surely you are joking?"

"Sir," I answered indignantly, "I am doing nothing of the sort. 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. Ain't you, Brown?"

"Yes, I am, Somers," I replied, taking his cue and shutting the tin case
with a snap.

Then the hawk-eyed person departed, also grumbling, for that story about
the damp stuck in his throat.

"Orchidist!" whispered the young man. "Dreadful people, orchidists, so
jealous. Very rich, too, both of them. Mr. Brown--I hope that is your
name, though I admit the chances are against it."

"They are," I replied, "my name is Allan Quatermain."

"Ah! much better than Brown. Well, Mr. Allan Quatermain, there's a
private room in this place to which I have admittance. Would you mind
coming with that----" here the hawk-eyed gentleman strolled past again,
"that case of butterflies?"

"With pleasure," I answered, and followed him out of the auction chamber
down some steps through the door to the left, and ultimately into a
little cupboard-like room lined with shelves full of books and ledgers.

He closed the door and locked it.

"Now," he said in a tone of the villain in a novel who at last has
come face to face with the virtu