CHAPTER XIV The Plot Against the Mosquito IF close association had brought to Snorky a canny knowledge of his roommate's need of unbosoming himself of a great idea, it had also acquainted Skippy with the profit to be derived from Snorky's overwhelming curiosity, particularly when there were any symptoms of ready cash.

The next afternoon, therefore, without being unduly surprised, he accepted an invitation to accompany Mr. Snorky Green to the home of the Conovers up the road, where the record for pancakes at one continuous sitting stood at forty-nine to the honor (without challengers) of the Hon. Hungry Smeed.

Somewhere between the fourteenth and fifteenth pancake, having solicitously offered the maple syrup, Snorky said casually:

"That's a jim-dandy idea of yours, old horse, about mosquitoes."

"I'm looking at it from all sides."

This answer did not satisfy Snorky Green's thirst for information, so he said encouragingly:

"It's a great idea. You must."

"Heard of Luther Burbank and what he does with plants?"

"Sure, that was in last week's lecture. Seedless fruit and all that sort of thing."

"Snorky," said Skippy meditatively, "who knows but some day a scientist will cross the mosquito with a butterfly?"

"What good'll that do?"

"It would take the sting out of the mosquito, wouldn't it?"

"Suppose it put it into the butterfly."

"If you're going to be facetious—" said Skippy, who, being sufficiently fed, rose with dignity, glad of the opportunity to postpone the discussion to another appetizing sitting.

For a week Snorky Green, greatly impressed by the concentrated moodiness of his chum's attitude, artfully fed him with pancakes, Éclairs, Turkish paste, and late at night tempted him with deviled chicken and saltines to be washed down with ginger pop and root beer.

Skippy, having calculated nicely the possibilities of the exchequer, threw out progressively dark, mysterious hints that fed Snorky's curiosity, without any open gift of his confidence. Even Doc Macnooder, aware by all outward signs that the imagination which had conceived of the Foot Regulator was again fermenting, had laid his arm about his shoulders and led him to the Jigger Shop.

But the Skippy Bedelle, who had assumed the trials and tribulations of manhood, had profited by the first disillusionments. The trusting, childlike faith was gone forever and in his new, skeptical attitude towards human nature—Toots Cortrelle excepted—he had determined to part with as few millions as possible.

"I say, Skippy, how's it working out?" said Snorky at eleven p.m., producing the crackers and cheese, after having blinded the windows and hung a blanket over the telltale cracks of the door.

"Fine!"

"Is that all you're going to tell me?" said Snorky with his hand on the cheese.

"Not yet, but soon," said Skippy, whose appetite always betrayed his caution.

"In that case I serve notice right here I'm through with the financing!"

"The financing!"

"What else do you call it?" said Snorky indignantly, producing the last two quarters from his pocket, and restoring the cheese to its box.

"All that will go down to your credit account," said Skippy in a conciliatory tone. "I'll tell you this much. There's nothing in the butterfly idea—it would take too long."

"Huh! You didn't think I bit on that! Well, how're you going to clean 'em up? They destroy 'em in Cuba with kerosene—I've been reading up. Is it something like that?"

"Destroy them, why destroy them?" said Skippy reprovingly.

"Why not?"

"If you destroy mosquitoes you destroy your income, you poor boob," said Skippy with his superior manner. "Let 'em live—who profits? I do."

Snorky rose and produced the Bible.

"Come on," he said, in a fever of excitement. "I'm ready. Give me the oath."

"You'll take the oath on my own terms!" said Skippy, looking at him fixedly.

"What do you mean, terms?"

"Snorky, it's so big it may take years of investigation, you understand—"

"Sure."

"This time I'm not giving up any fifty-one per cent."

"Let her go!"

"And if any one goes in they go in on a salary!"

"Oho! I see."

"Well?"

"All right, I'll swear," said Snorky, after a brief wrestling between his curiosity and his financial instincts.

"It may be years working out," said Skippy sadly. "Maybe our children will live to see it; but Snorky, some day, I'm telling you, when the idea is perfected, the mosquito is going to starve to death!"

Snorky, without waiting to be prompted, hurriedly took an oath to guard the secret from man woman and child and called down the scourges of Jehovah on his nearest of kin if he should ever prove false.

"Snorky," said Skippy, folding his arms behind him and spreading his legs after the manner ascribed to the famous Corsican, "where do mosquitoes bite you the most?"

"Golly! Where don't they?" said Snorky, who, thus reminded, began to scratch back of his ears.

"Where do they bite where you can't hear them coming?"

"Legs and ankles," said Snorky instantly.

"Bright boy—you're getting closer."

"Danged if I can see it."

"Protect the ankles and the mosquito starves—am I right?"

"Hurry up," said Snorky, who by this time recognized that the first reasoning processes were simply eliminatory.

"That was my problem," said Skippy, frowning impressively. "Here is the answer—this is how it came to me." He went to the bureau and passed his hand into a sock, two fingers projecting through the devastated regions. "What do you call this?"

"That—that's my sock."

"You call 'em hole-proof socks," said Skippy, ignoring the aspersion. "You get it? You don't? Suppose we change it, suppose we use the same organization but call it—Mosquito-Proof Socks."

"Mosquito-Proof Socks!" said Snorky in a whisper.

Skippy, satisfied at the staggering effect produced, stood with a smile waiting for the full result.

"But, Skippy, is it—possible?" said Snorky faintly when he had brought his lower jaw back under control.

"That's not the way to look at it," said Skippy impatiently. "Is the idea A No. 1, or is it not?"

"The idea? My aunt's cat's pants—the idea!" said Snorky all in a breath, "Mosquito-Proof Socks! Why, it's—it's—it's—" But here Snorky stopped, nonplussed, having exhausted his supply of adjectives on the Foot Regulator.

"It is!" said Skippy firmly.

"But won't they be too heavy?"

"What the deuce—"

"Why, they'd have to be regular bullet-proof, wouldn't they?"

"Say! What do you think I'm talking about—Tin Socks?"

"Why, I thought—"

"Listen! This is the way you get at it," said Skippy, walking up and down in ponderous concentration but pausing from time to time to dip into the cheese. "You begin by looking at it from the point of view of the mosquito. A mosquito has got nerves, hasn't he, just like a horse or a cat or a bullfrog?"

"Sure he has."

"What frightens a mosquito most?"

"Is it a joke?" said Snorky thoughtfully.

"Green—"

"I apologize," said Snorky hastily, and he brought out a bottle of sarsaparilla.

"A horse shies at a bit of paper; a sneeze will scare a cat, won't it? Well, then, what will scare a mosquito—it's all there!"

"Well, what will scare a mosquito?" said Snorky, wide-eyed.

"That is the field of investigation," said Skippy in a melancholy voice.

"But you said Mosquito-Proof Socks!"

"I did. Suppose a harsh sound annoys a mosquito; all you've got to do is to suspend a tiny rusty bell—"

"I don't like that," said Snorky instantly.

"Why not?"

"It doesn't sound modest—"

"That is probably not the way," said Skippy, dismissing this objection with a wave of his hand. "I'm thorough, that's all. Supposing there are certain colors that scare him or make him seasick—red and purple or yellow and violet."

"By jingo! Now you're talking."

"Suppose the mosquito has some deadly enemy. Then all you've got to do is to work his picture into the design of the socks."

"Holy cats!"

"Supposin' it's just the sense of smell you get him by—"

"Citronella!" fairly shouted Snorky.

"Hush!" said Skippy, alarmed at the outbreak.

"Citronella!" said Snorky in a whisper.

"You see? Mosquito-Proof Socks is the idea—and there must be fifty ways of working it out."

"Cheese it!" said Snorky, dousing the light at a sound in the hall.

---

At a point somewhere between the witching hour and the dawn Snorky said in a tentative whisper:

"Hey there, Skippy! Are you awake?"

"What is it?"

"Gosh! Skippy, I can't sleep. It's just steaming around in my brain!"

"M. P. S.?"

"You bet. I can't see anything but them, millions of them!"

"Mosquitoes?"

"No—legs! Holy Jemima! Skippy, have you thought how many legs there are in the world? Why, in the United States alone twice ninety-two million. Think of it! And what'll they average in socks and stockings? I've been trying to work it out all night. Gee! My head's just cracking. If you multiply twice ninety-two million by seven pair of socks or even six—"

"Don't!" said Skippy angrily, and he thought to himself, "Thinking of money, thinking of money! How mercenary he is!"

"Standard Oil is nowhere," said Snorky feverishly.

"Don't I know it!"

"Oil'll run out but there'll always be mosquitoes and legs!"

"Darn you, Snorky! Shut up and let me sleep!"

But how was he to sleep with the vision that Snorky's avaricious imagination held out to him? All night long he tossed about restlessly, wandering in a forest of legs; white ones and red ones, black ones and yellow ones, tall ones and short ones, fat, thin, bow-legged and crooked, all the legs in the world waiting for him to rise up and protect them!

The next morning it was worse. All his imagination, suddenly diverted from the exact scientific contemplation, was halted before the stupendous contemplation of future profits.

"Snorky Green is a bad influence," he said moodily as he trudged out heavy-headed from morning chapel. Do what he might, the contamination spread. With all the long fatigue of patient investigation he knew was ahead, his mind leaped over the present and galloped into the future.

"Multiply twice ninety-two million legs by six pair of socks," he found himself repeating. "Oil may run out, but you bet there'll always be mosquitoes and legs."

Yes, it was greater than Standard Oil. It was fabulous to conceive of the wealth that would be his. All at once the John C. Bedelle Gymnasium seemed ludicrously inadequate. He would double the present equipment! There would be a second campus—Bedelle Circle! The school lacked water; he would create a lake for it and the John C. Bedelle Boathouse....

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"Bedelle, kindly shine for us. You may translate, John, but be cautious and not too free."

The Roman's mocking voice brought him precipitately to his feet. He opened his book but the passage had escaped him and though he dug Shrimp Bedient savagely in the back, no signal returned.

"Excellent so far, quite exceptionally excellent; nothing to criticize," said the Roman's rising and falling inflection. "Go on."

"Please, sir, I didn't do the advance."

The class roared and the Roman said:

"Too bad, John, too bad! No luck in guessing this morning. We're in the review, John. Too bad! Dreaming again, John? Don't do it, don't do it! The country will take care of itself, without you. Times are hard, John. Another year in the Second Form is a dreadful drain on Father's pocket-book. Sit down, John, and don't dream—don't do it."

---

Skippy sat down and glared at the Roman.

Some day, some day he would even institute a fund for superannuated teachers, he would! He would come back some day to the school he had made the greatest in the country; he would come as the benefactor and then the Roman, old, and decrepit in a wheeled chair, would be brought to him, to him, John C. Bedelle, whom as a boy he had held up to the ridicule of the class! What a revenge that would be, the proud and haughty Roman, the greatest flunker of them all, the Roman of the caustic tongue and the all-seeing eye, actually clinging to his hand, stammering out his thanks ... the Roman whose mocking voice still echoed in his memory, "Don't dream, John, don't do it!"

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