What was Uncle Monty talking about?

“I’m afraid I don’t quite follow you,” Klaus said, which is the polite way of saying “What are you talking about, Uncle Monty?”

“Last night, after you went to bed, Stephano asked me a few too many questions about all the snakes and about my upcoming expedition. And do you know why?”

“I think so,” Violet began, but Uncle Monty interrupted her.

“It is because this man who is calling himself Stephano,” he said, “is really a member of the Herpetological Society, and he is here to try and find the Incredibly Deadly Viper so he can preempt my presentation. Do you three know what the word ‘preempt’ means?”

“No,” Violet said, “but—”

“It means that I think this Stephano is going to steal my snake,” Uncle Monty said, “and present it to the Herpetological Society.

Because it is a new species, there’s no way I can prove I discovered it. Before we know it, the Incredibly Deadly Viper will be called the Stephano Snake, or something dreadful like that. And if he’s planning that, just think what he will do to our Peruvian expedition. Each toad we catch, each venom sample we put into a test tube, each snake interview we record—every scrap of work we do—will fall into the hands of this Herpetological Society spy.”

“He’s not a Herpetological Society spy,” Klaus said impatiently, “he’s Count Olaf!”

“I know just what you mean!” Uncle

Monty said excitedly. “This sort of behavior is indeed as dastardly as that terrible man’s. That is why I’m doing this.” He raised one hand and waved the folded papers in the air.

“As you know,” he said, “tomorrow we are leaving for Peru. These are our tickets for the five o’clock voyage on the Prospero, a fine ship that will take us across the sea to South America. There’s a ticket for me, one for Violet, one for Klaus, one for Stephano, but not one for Sunny because we’re going to hide her in a suitcase to save money.”

“Deepo!”

“I’m kidding about that. But I’m not kidding about this.” Uncle Monty, his face flushed with excitement, took one of the folded papers and began ripping it into tiny pieces. “This is Stephano’s ticket. He’s not going to Peru with us after all. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to tell him that he needs to stay here and look after my specimens instead. That way we can run a successful expedition in peace.”

“But Uncle Monty—” Klaus said.