“Will you kindly repeat the question?” said Lillian flying over to the railing.
“We want to know,” said Mother Nature, “how it is that very often, when you have been fairly caught, it turns out that you have escaped without injury.”
“I would prefer to answer the question as it was first put,” said Lillian.
So Waldo Lizard, Edna Elephant and Lawrence Walrus, seeing that there was no way out, cried:
“Yes, yes, Lillian, do tell us.”
“First of all, you must know,” began Lillian Mosquito, “that my chief duty is to annoy. Whatever else I do, however many bites I total in the course of the evening, I do not consider that I have ‘made good’ unless I have caused a great deal of annoyance while doing it. A bite, quietly executed and not discovered by the victim until morning, does me no good. It is my duty, and my pleasure, to play with him before biting, as you have often heard a cat plays with a mouse, tormenting him with apprehension and making him struggle to defend himself…. If I am using too long words for you, please stop me.”
“Stop!” cried Waldo Lizard, reaching for his hat, with the idea of possibly getting to the ball park by the fifth inning.
But he was prevented from leaving by kindly old Mother Nature, who stepped on him with her kindly old heel, and Lillian Mosquito continued:
“I must therefore, you see, be able to use my little voice with great skill. Of course, the first thing to do is to make my victim think that I am nearer to him than I really am. To do this, I sit quite still, let us say, on the footboard of the bed, and, beginning to hum in a very, very low tone of voice, increase the volume and raise the pitch gradually, thereby giving the effect of approaching the pillow.
“The man in bed thinks that he hears me coming toward his head, and I can often see him, waiting with clenched teeth until he thinks that I am near enough to swat. Sometimes I strike a quick little grace-note, as if I were right above him and about to make a landing. It is great fun at such times to see him suddenly strike himself over the ear (they always think that I am right at their ear), and then feel carefully between his finger tips to see if he has caught me. Then, too, there is always the pleasure of thinking that perhaps he has hurt himself quite badly by the blow. I have often known victims of mine to deafen themselves permanently by jarring their eardrums in their wild attempts to catch me.”
