Rock Island Argus

A BAG OF MYSTERY.

IT UPSET THE EQUILIBRIUM OF A CARLOAD OF BROOKLYNITES.

The Peace of Mind Which the Resident of Brooklyn Puts on With His Sunday Clothes Greatly Disturbed by the Strange Young Man's Actions.

There was an odd little episode in a Brooklyn trolley car of the Flatbush line on a recent Sunday afternoon, which gave rise to an amusing comedy of conflict between the natural curiosity of human nature and the civilized obligation to restrain it.

The Flatbush and Flatlands line runs away out into the region of cornfields, truck farms and forests, lately gathered into Brooklyn's municipal area. When the car started from the end of the route it had aboard one passenger, a pleasant faced young man who carried a large leather handbag. He was well dressed, but his clothes were covered with dust and his shoes with mud, suggesting that he had been roaming across lots in the rural wards. As the car approached and passed Prospect park it filled up with Sunday strollers.

The young man sat beside the stove, with his bag on his knees. After awhile he opened the bag a trifle, shook it gently and peered attentively inside. Then he put his hand in and seemed to be gently stirring up its contents. The passengers sitting directly opposite to him became interested in his doings, but he didn't look up. After shaking the bag from side to side for a little while he bent over and became interested in some mysterious business which for the rest of the trip absorbed his entire attention and also that of his fellow passengers.

He reached down into the bag with his right hand, lifted out something carefully in the hollow of his palm, weighed it carefully, held it to his ear, shook it, held it to his ear again and then decisively reached around and put it into his overcoat pocket. Then he reached into the bag again and went through the same motions, except that this time he placed the something carefully in one corner of the bag. First one and then another of the passengers became interested in the young man and his performance until very soon every one was peering closely, some almost painfully, over at him and his bag. But he never looked up. By and by the conductor came in and walked nervously the length of the car several times, peering into the young man's bag as he passed. But the bag was open only a trifle, and he could see nothing of its contents. He went outside and discussed the matter with a man who stood on the platform.

The young man, intensely absorbed in his performances and seemingly altogether oblivious of the intense interest of the other passengers in him, kept steadily on, lifting out invisible somethings, weighing them, listening to them, shaking them and sorting them over. Once in awhile he lifted out bits of twigs and leaves and threw them on the floor. The passengers eyed them over attentively, but could make nothing out of them. Soon they began whispering one to another about the mysterious doings of the young man, and the women moved nervously around, and one or two men looked as though they were determined to ask the young man for an explanation if he looked up. But he didn't look up. Once in awhile a passenger got out and tried hard to peer into the bag as he passed it, but uselessly. The situation was painful and was also intensely comical to one passenger who was almost as much interested in watching the ill concealed curiosity and strained nervousness of the passengers as in trying to fathom the mystery of the young man's performance. Probably it had been any other day than Sunday some one would have plucked up courage to ask a simple although maybe impertinent question and so relieve the general strain. But the restraint imposed by Sunday clothes held every one back.

Finally when the car was entering Fulton street, the young man suddenly looked out of the window, closed the bag with a snap and hurried out of the car. There was a movement on the part of the other passengers, partly of alarm at the escape of the young man with the mystery unsolved and partly perhaps of relief at the end of the suspense. One man made a quick jump after the mysterious young man and caught him for a few seconds as he was about to leave the car.

'What've y' got? Whatcher doing?' he asked, regardless of all proprieties.

The young man looked surprised and then smiled and said:

'Oh, cocoons, chrysalides, moths, you know. I've been gathering them out in the country, and I sell them to the naturalists.' Then he jumped off the car.

The impulsive, inquisitive man returned to his seat, and the remaining passengers were eagerly waiting for him. He explained that the young man was a naturalist or naturalist's collector. He evidently made a business of going around the country hunting over the fences and bushes for the chrysalides, or pupae, of moths and butterflies. Some of these are attached to fence pickets, but perhaps the greater number are found on leaves or twigs. They look like balls of silk usually, but often are covered with dust, dead leaves and such matter. The collector simply gathered everything into his bag and then sorted them out later. Some of the cocoons are empty, and these he could tell sometimes by their light weight, but more certainly by shaking them. The pupa is usually loose and rattles inside the cocoon. The empty shells he put into his coat pocket, the live pupae he sorted out according to size or perhaps by peculiarities which distinguished their character.

It seemed a curious business, but yet it wasn't quite so odd as the comical perplexity in which it kept about a score of Brooklynites. - New York Sun.