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Hindi. Of course, you have to read them with a magnifying glass, but they are well worth the trouble—very action packed. Sometimes the stories continue for generations. I have heard of entomologists, though, who have gone crazy because the last novella generation in an area died out before the end of the story—"
    I interrupted. "Most fascinating, Professor Lepworthy, but we are more interested in why this particular butterfly you pointed out to us is preposterous." Uncle had said I was good at interrupting, and I felt as if I should put the skill to good use.
    "Of course. To the point, and all that. If you must know
what is preposterous, it is not the butterfly itself, but where it comes from." He paused as if for dramatic effect, which was spoiled by his toupee slipping back farther.
    "Which is...," James, Jane, and I all said in concert.
    "Tou-eh-mah-mah Island. The same place your uncle's beetle came from. I say, having two insects come here from an island thousands of miles away is ... is..."
    "Preposterous," we said.

Chapter Six
In Which a Truce Is Negotiated
    WHEN ONE'S CHERISHED GUARDIAN HAS become a social pariah with no aspirations to change, one must reconsider one's personal goals. With circumstances as they were, my future had the brilliance of squashed toadstools. I was forced to envision my treasured dream of a London season receding over the horizon as if on the wings of an elusive Tou-eh-mah-mah butterfly unless Uncle Augustus's dietary preferences returned to normal, posthaste.
    My problem was that I had no suitable female relations whom I could trust to sponsor me, with the operative word being
suitable.
There were two aunts on the Arbuthnot side, but the only way I would ask them for help was if Great Britain were to sink into the sea, as did Atlantis of old, and I were stranded in a leaky lifeboat—and even then I might choose to swim. Jane and James's mother would no doubt take me on, but she was in India visiting one of her old school chums. No, it would be easiest if I had a hale and hearty Uncle Augustus.
    "I feel fit as a fiddle, I tell you," said Uncle Augustus as he leaped lightly from the seat of a Jacobean chair to the top of a Louis XIV armoire, both of which had graced the yellow sitting room in my home for generations. My ancestors were most likely turning in their graves at Uncle's treatment of heirlooms, and if they weren't, I was.
    "So I see," I said. I took a bite of one of Armond's delectable muffins. It had a calming effect.
    Uncle scrabbled about atop the armoire. "Did you know that the housekeeping staff doesn't clean up here? There were several dead spiders and flies and at least ten moths."
    "Were?" I asked and then thought better about pursuing the subject. Resolutely brushing muffin crumbs from my fingers, I said, "Uncle, do you think we might have a little chat?"
    Uncle Augustus caught the chandelier and swung nimbly into the chair across the tea table from me. "A tête-à-tête, as it were?"
    "Yes. Now that everyone has gone and we are alone, I thought we could discuss your condition."
    His brow furrowed. "Are you still trying to persuade me to drink that witch doctor's potion of crocodile dung and other bally ingredients?"
    "Well—"
    "I won't do it. I've never felt better in my life."
    "Yes, but—"
    "Look here. My old cricket injury has vanished. No more rheumatism in the knees or anywhere else, for that matter. It's as if I were twenty years younger." Uncle hopped about the room, first on one foot and then the other, to demonstrate.
    I sighed. "That's wonderful, but—"
    "It's more than wonderful. It's jolly magnificent!" Uncle snatched a fly from the air and transferred it into his mouth. Indeed, he looked as though he had been rejuvenated. I, on the other hand, felt one hundred years old. It was as if our roles were reversed.
    "Uncle, you do realize that now you are interrupting me?"
    He didn't look the least bit repentant. "What is it you