“Well,” the Mosquito Man said, at last, “I will make the drainage on your property anyway, and it will cost me $2,000.  If you want it left you will have to pay me every cent of the $2,000, not just the $1,000 that I am asking now.  Otherwise I shall fill up my ditches and let you enjoy your mosquitoes.”

The representative did not laugh at this, but cabled the president in South America.  As the president had just been at Panama, and had seen the mosquito extermination work, the $1,000 subscription came back by return cable.

The Darien Board of Health also was a spot against which in direct influence was knocking, for it was a rich Board of Health with $150 at its disposal—­and the Mosquito Man wanted that appropriation to flaunt in the faces of the old settlers.

“God sent mosquitoes,” objected one member of the Board of Health, “and it is going in the face of Providence to try to get rid of them.”

All in all, the money was raised.  Some whom he asked for $100 gave $25, and some whom he asked for $25 gave $100, and some millionaires did not give at all—­but a sail-maker is still telling proudly of how he gave $5, and “I haven’t regretted a cent of it since.”

The draining now commenced, and the expert and the Mosquito Man were of the same stripe.  The work was completed in six weeks.  Just about this time people stopped calling the Mosquito Man “a bug,” and the members of the Country Club even tried to make him talk mosquitoes to them, while the sail-maker felt sure that his $5 had done the whole job.  Hammocks were swung out in the yards—­and a hammock hung outside of the screens is the barometer of the mosquito condition.

The Mosquito Man was feeling very satisfied the night he went to a dance at the Country Club.  But the east wind blew in the mosquitoes from the Norwalk marshes.

“It was the most embarrassing experience I have ever had,” said the Mosquito Man.  “I sat right behind a big fat lady whose dress was very low and I watched the mosquitoes bite her; her whole back was covered with red lumps.  That night I telegraphed to the man who had done the draining and he telegraphed back that all of Norwalk township must be drained.”

Norwalk proved to be a much severer task than Darien.  In Darien the Mosquito Man had found only indifference and prejudice; in Norwalk he met active opposition.  Property owners and city councils seem to be afraid that the value of property will be brought down if any sanitation scandal is advertised.  It really appeared to be simpler and better business to ignore the fact.

To do away with this opposition, the Mosquito Man handled his campaign in a popular manner.  The cooperation of the newspapers was gained and every day he published articles on the mosquito question; some of the articles were educational and others were facetious—­while one came out that brought the property owners crying “murder” about his ears.  This was the article in which he gave the statistics of Norwalk’s health rate in comparison with other Connecticut towns.  The smallest subscriptions were encouraged, for, after a man has given a dollar to a cause, that cause is his.  Many a child was received with a welcoming smile when he brought to the campaign offices a ten-cent donation.