FROM BURGLAR TO BUTTERFLY COLLECTOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 3415, 29 August 1919, Page 56

FROM BURGLAR TO BUTTERFLY COLLECTOR.

There does not seem to ha much connection between burglars and butterflies; but in her book, "The Butterfly Man," Marie Conway Oemler tells us the story of how a professional thief, whose daring exploits have made his name notorious, finds in collecting and studying these fragile little winged creatures an interest that gradually weans him. away from his old evil life and transforms his whole nature. He discovers that the very qualities that made him so successful as a burglar —his coolness and resource, his patience, and, above all, his marvellous manual skill and dexterity—are just the qualities essential to success in his new pursuit. The scene of the story is laid in Appleboro, a quiet, old-fashioned town in South Carolina, where there' are 24 hours to day, and one can afford to do things unhurriedly and has leisure po be neighbourly. Best of all, it is a place -where one can be poor pleasantly, and life there retains a charming simplicity. Such is the description the narrator of the story, Armand de Ranee, a Catholic priest, gives of the little town in which his parish is situated and the events of which he tells take place. But Appleboro has another and less agreeable side, for in the new part of the town mills and factories have sprung up, and with them have come into' existence the unhealthy, sordid, and overcrowded conditions that are so inevitably found in the manufacturing and of Britain and America. Accidents are frequent, for in addition to danger from machinery, this part of the town is honeycombed with railway lines and level crossings which exact a heavy toll in human life, and finding that there is no provision in the town for the sick and injured poor, the good priest and his beautiful- and highborn mother establish a Guest Boom at the Parish House, where they nurse back to health many suffering and needy ones. To this haven of refuge is brought, one cold December morning, a man who has been run over by a train and terribly injured. Nobody knows who he is, and his only luggage consists of a package tied up in an oilskin. One of his legs has to be amputated, and for a few days he hovers between life and death, but skill and careful nursing win the day. Consciousness returns, but when the patient realises that he is a cripple,* he bursts forth into screams of rage and fear, and curses and reviles those who saved his life. The priest and the doctor are nonplussed and wonder why such a seemingly useless life has been spared, while others, valuable and beloved, have been taken away. The man appears to be absolutely without one. redeeming point. The priest, in describing him, says that he wondered if he had ever seen a more unprepossessing creature. "It was not so much physical; his curious ugliness," he continues"; "the dreadful thing was that it seemed to be his spirit which informed his flesh, an inherent unloveliness of soul upon which the body was modelled, worked out faithfully and so made visible." The whole countenance was full of distrust and venom, and it seemed to the good Father that of all the sad and terrible cases he had had in the Guest Boom this was the saddest and most hopeless. He had also made the discovery, to his horror and consternation, that the oilskin package belonging to his visitor contained a complete set of burglar's tools, and when he learns from the newspapers that Slippy M'Gee, "the slickest crook in America," has, while on the point of being captured, miraculously escaped and left no clue as to his whereabouts, the riddle is at once made plain. . Many good and upright people would, upon learning who the stranger was, have handed him over' to the police and considered that they had no further responsibility in regard to him. But this humane and tender-hearted Catholic priest has no such hard and fast rules of conduct, and it does not greatly trouble him if in following in the footsteps of his Master he flouts; man-made laws. He resolves to keep the secret and await developments. "As I grow older," he says, "I have grown more and more convinced that not not . by chance, never without real and inner purposes, are we allowed to come vitally into each other's lives. I have walked up the steep sides of Calvary to find out that

when another wayfarer pauses for a space beside us, it is because one has something to give, the other something to receive. When the stranger, who has given the name of John Flint, learns that the priest is aware of his identity, and intends to keep the secret, he is amazed, and shows for the first time some faint glimmerings of the awakening of a better nature. _ This is the first step in the transformation of Slippy M'Gee, outcast and criminal into John Flint, the Butterfly Man. Surrounded by gracious influences and treated with the utmost kindness and consideration by the inmates of the Parish House, his nature begins to thaw. Gradually he loses his ferocity, and in its place comes an anxious wonder. There is only one thing he is sure of and that is that never again can he be the "slickest cracksman in America," and at that thought he writhes and curses, till it sometimes seems to the priest as if he were witnessing the Dark Powers fighting visibly for a soul. At the critical stage when complete convalescence is reached, he makes the acquaintance of a charming little girl who, in a moment of inspiration, suggests that he should help the priest in his hobby of collecting butterflies, and thus provides him with a new interest in life, and one which in time takes the place of his old absorbing profession. He becomes an ardent entomologist, but the battle is not won all at once, and again and again his old nature asserts itself and a great longing comes over him for the excitement 01 his former life. One day he actually leaves the Parish House to return to Tsey York, and the priest is broken-hearted, believing that all his labour and prayers have been in vain, and that the Butterfly Man will disappear and in his place will emerge Slippy M'Gee a thousand times more dangerous than before. But the good father under-estimates the power of the good influences that have been at work, for after an absence of but a few hours the Butterfly Man returns carrying in his hat a rare and splendid specimen, .the sight of which had been sufficient to make him forget all his longings for his . old evil ways. John Flint had come back, and Slippy M'Gee had gone away for ever. The priest wept for joy. This man whom he had thought utterly lost, had been given back to him, and, he exclaims in wondering awe, "God had needed nothing stronger than a butterfly's wings to bear a living soul across the abyss." Such is the main theme of this inspiring novel, but the -interest is by no means confined to the account of the redemption of Slippy M'Gee, and interwoven with this is the charming love story of the boy and girl who help him so much in his struggle upwards. The plot is fresh and original, and there are some unexpected developments, the most dramatic of which is the incident in which John Flint with the connivance of the priest resorts to his old profession in order to extricate the girl to whom he owes so much from an intolerable situation. The whole atmosphere of the book is eminently sane and healthy, and when so much of our present day literature deals with the worst side of human nature, and makes no attempt to find a remedy for the evils it so realistically describes, it is decidedly refreshing to come across a novel which shows that even in the worst of men there are possibilities for good, and indicates the way in which these can be brought out and -developed. ELEANOR.