"Fine!" he said; "I feel better now."

Then the rest of the committee knew that it was a false alarm originating in the thirst of the Professor.

But just then the gloom in front of them began to take form and shape, and they knew this was no false alarm.

"Zwei!" whispered Professor Soupnoodle.

"Great Scott!" exclaimed Dr. Glueface, "my idea is right--the Jersey mosquito has a language! I can catch a word now and then. It is something like Sanscrit, only slangier!"

They listened and watched.

Approaching them through the gloom could be seen two beautiful specimens of the Kings of the Jersey jungles.

"It is a male und a female," whispered the Dutch Professor. "I can tell it because he vears someding like a Pajama hat, und she holds vun ving up like a skirt."

The committee clutched their repeating rifles closer and prepared for the worst.

"They are engaged to be married," Professor Glueface whispered; "he has just told her that he knows where to get good board and lodging in a Harlem flat. She calls him Percy. Her name is Evaline. Hss-s-s-sh!"

The warning was too late.

The Scourges of the Swamp had discovered the cage and drew nearer.

"He laughs at us," whispered Professor Glueface; "now he is telling her that the cage is only made of steel and it is a cinch. He has gone to get his drill. What is to be done?"

"In the interests of science," Uncle William whispered, "let us sneak out and run for the police with all our hearts."

And this they did while Percy was getting his drill ready.

Time, for the first 100 yards, nine seconds flat; for the rest of the distance about ten seconds on the average.

The committee has not yet reported whether or not there is malaria in a mosquito's bite, because they didn't wait to let him bite them.

Stung!

CHAPTER V

JOHN HENRY ON STREET CAR ETIQUETTE

"Ding!"

"Naw, we don't take no transfers, needer! Aw, chase yerself!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Naw, we don't take no transfers, needer!"]

"Ding, ding!"

For my part I haven't been able to figure it out, but Uncle Peter is the lad who has made a profound study of that street car proposition known as the End-Seat Hog.

I'm going to pa.s.s you out a talk he handed me a few evenings ago on that subject.

Pipe!

Suffering crumpets, John! I don't know anything about this end seat business, and the more I try to find out the more complex becomes the problem.

I've been up and down and over and across in the surface cars, John, and my experience is ornamented by ripped trousers and discolored shins, but my intellect blows out a fuse every time I try to dope out the real way not to be an End-Seat Hog.

Last Monday I jumped on an open-face car and it seemed that all the world was filled with joy and good wishes.

I was smoking one of those Bad Boy cigars. I call it a Bad Boy cigar because as soon as it goes out it gets awful noisy.

It was away uptown and the car was empty with the exception of a couple of benches.

Two blocks further on the car stopped and a stout lady looked over the situation.

I think she must have been color blind, because she didn't see the empty seats ahead and decided to cast her lot with me.

It was a terrific moment.

"Peter," I said to myself, "don't be a Hog--move over!"

And virtue was triumphant.

I moved over, and the stout lady settled squashfully into the end seat.

Her displacement was about fifteen cents' worth of bench.

After we had gone about ten blocks more every seat in the car in front and behind us was crowded, but n.o.body could get in our section because the fat lady held them at bay like Horatius held the bridge in the brave days of old.

People would rush up to the car when it stopped, glance carelessly fore and aft until their eyes rested on the vacant seats in our direction, and then they would see the stout lady sitting there, as graceful as the sunken ships which used to block the harbor at Port Arthur.

The people would look at the stout lady with no hope in their eyes, and then, with a sigh, they would retire and wait for the next car.

No one was brave enough to climb the mountain which grew up between them and the promised land.

After a while I began to get a toothache in my conscience.

"Peter," I said to myself in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, "perhaps after all _you_ were the Hog because you moved over! After the lady had climbed over you she would have kept on to the other end of the bench where now there is nothing but a sullen s.p.a.ce."

I began to insult myself.

"Peter," I exclaimed inwardly, "what do _you_ know about the etiquette of the street car? According to the newspapers it is only a Man who can be a Hog on the street cars, and since you are the original cause of blockading the port when you moved over, _you_ must be the Hog!"

Then I got so mad at myself that I refused to talk to myself any further.