"All right, but get a move on. Ouch, I've got two already."
"Fine! I'll count a hundred slowly. Start up, Greaser."
The low, harsh, grating sounds of a rusty bell slowly agitated began to be heard, punctuating the droning count: "Five, six, seven!"
"For the love of Willie Keeler, what is it!" said the Shad, more and more bewildered, as he rubbed one leg against the other and shook his head to protect himself from the many insects. "It must be a secret society and this is the initiation."
"Twenty-nine, thirty--remember your oath."
"Say! Count a little faster; I can't hold out much longer."
The reply was too blasphemous to be set down here.
The Tennessee Shad, too, was paying dearly the price of his curiosity; so, being convinced that he had stumbled upon a secret initiation, he decided to get some enjoyment out of the situation. Presently, trumpeting his mouth with his hands, he emitted a long, wailing sound:
"It's a night owl that's all; fifty-six, fifty-seven--"
"There ain't no ghosts, you chicken-livered--"
But at this moment the Tennessee Shad, smarting from head to foot, let out an ear-splitting screech and the three experimenters in mosquitology disappeared at top speed. The Tennessee Shad, satisfied, emerged, examined with curiosity a discarded helmet smeared with citronella-soaked cheesecloth, and picked up a rusty dinner bell. This last stuck in the crop of his imagination.
"Secret-society stuff," he said to himself as he slapped his way out of the marsh. "But why the bell? Darn mysterious, that bell. . . ."
THE result of the first investigation in the likes and dislikes of the New Jersey mosquito brought a decided difference of opinion. It was admitted (given the swollen condition of Greaser Tunxton's legs) that the insect's sense of hearing was undoubtedly defective. Snorky Green was equally emphatic in expressing his conviction that all colors were alike to it, but Skippy insisted that it was not scientific to jump to a conclusion on the basis of one experiment.
"But golly! I had forty-seven bites on the red stocking and sixty-five on the blue, and if that doesn't prove anything, I'd like to know what!"
"It proves that blue attracts them more than red, that's all. We must now try other combinations."