62 IN THE SEALED TIN. 
back upon a shelf, intending to return it to 
the grocer. Then she—promptly forgot all 
about it. 
The grub cared not. She pupated calmly, 
as if nothing had happened; that is, she became, 
not a grub any longer, but a chrysalis, a thing 
like a husky grain of brownish corn, apparently 
quite lifeless, headless, and limbless. But she 
had plenty of life really. 
Now, the tin was near a hot-water pipe, and 
I fancy that accounted for her breaking her 
bonds of discipline all of a sudden one day, 
quite a month before she ought to have done, 
and, thinking summer had come, splitting 
open the husky shell of herself, as it were, 
and walking out as a full-blown, if at first 
rather limp and clammy, bluebottle fly. 
The tin, however, was now a prison. Gifted 
with eyes—very many eyes—legs, wings, and 
all the panoply of open-air free life, and only 
a big tongue to eat liquid, or semi-liquid, 
with, she chafed to be out and away. 
Then came fate, in the shape of a naughty, 
hungry, thieving little boy, who, climbing 
upon a chair, lifted the lid of the tin, and— 
bz-z-z-zp ! 
The naughty little boy dropped the tin 
with a yell, and fell off the chair with louder 
yells, and our bluebottle was free. You can 
