The garden was full of laughter and chatter and perfumes, and women in pretty clothes, and young girls dainty as flowers, and the smiling faces of men.  But I am no longer of the party age.  I stole away to a favorite haunt of mine at the back of the garden, behind the spireas and the holly tree, where there is a dilapidated old seat we have been threatening to remove any time this five years.  Here, some time later, the Butterfly Man himself came stealthily, and seemed embarrassed to find the place preempted.

“Well,” said I, making room for him beside me, “it isn’t so bad after all, is it?”

“No.  I’m glad I was let in for it,” he admitted frankly, “though I’d hate to have to come to parties for a living.  Still, this afternoon has nailed down a thought that’s been buzzing around loose in my mind this long time.  It’s this:  people aren’t anything but people, after all.  Men and women and kids, the best and the worst of ’em, they’re nothing but people, the same as everybody else.  No, I’ll never be scared to meet anybody, after this. I’m people, too!”

“The same as everybody else.”

“The same as everybody else,” he repeated, soberly.  “Not but what there’s lots of difference between folks.  And there are things it’s good to know, too ... things that women like Madame ... and Miss Mary Virginia Eustis ... expect a man to know, if they’re not going to be ashamed of him.”  He thought about this awhile, then: 

“I tell you what, father,” he remarked, tentatively, “it must be a mighty fine thing to know you’ve got the right address written on you, good and plain, and the right number of stamps, and the sender’s name somewhere on a corner, to keep you from going astray or to the Dead Letter Office; and not to be scrawled in lead-pencil, and misspelt, and finger-smutched, and with a couple of postage-due stamps stuck on you crooked, and the Lord only knows who and where from.”

“Why, yes,” said I, “that’s true, and one does well to consider it.  But the main thing, the really important thing, is the letter itself—­what’s written inside, John Flint.”

“But what’s written inside wouldn’t be any the worse if it was written clearer and better, and the outside was cleaner and on nice paper?  And in pen-and-ink, not lead-pencil scratches?” he insisted earnestly.

“Of course not.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking lately, father.  Somehow, I always did like things to have some class to ’em.  I remember how I used to lean against the restaurant windows when I was a kid, and watch the folks inside, how they dressed and acted, and the way the nicest of ’em handled table-tools.  They weren’t swells, of course, and plenty of ’em made plenty of mistakes—­I’ve seen stunts done with a common table-knife that had the best of the sword-swallowing gents skinned a mile—­but I wasn’t a fool, and I learned some.  Then when I—­er—­began to make real money (parson, I made it in wads and gobs