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Mr. Neatby lived in lodgings within a convenient distance of the school. He was therefore spared any intercourse with the boys after school hours, and usually spent his evenings in correcting innumerable marble-boarded exercise books, containing chemistry notes. He was so engaged one evening about nine o’clock, when his landlady entered the room and laid a square parcel at his elbow.

He finished correcting the book he had in hand, and took another, when his attention was arrested by an indescribable sound.

Mr. Neatby lifted his head and gazed about the room. “Could it be a mouse under the skirting-board?” he wondered. Then half unconsciously his eyes fell on the parcel his landlady had brought into the room. It was an oblong cardboard box, about the size of an ordinary shoe-box. But, although tied up with string, it was not wrapped in paper, and on looking at it more closely, Mr. Neatby discovered that the top was riddled with small holes.

Had it been summer, he, being something of a naturalist, would have at once concluded that someone had sent him some rare caterpillars, but what caterpillars are to be found in November?