“Wait! Wait!” begged the professor, as he tried to get through the crowd to where the lad was, hopping about in pain. Just then the youth yelled again.
“It’s flown off me,” he said, “and it’s on John Stubb now! Look out, John, or it will bite you!”
“You put it on me on purpose,” complained John. “I’ll kill it!”
But by this time Professor Snodgrass was on hand and had made a prisoner of the buzzless bumble bee.
Then a woman reported that a snake was coiled up in front of her, and about to strike, and the scientist hastened over and captured that, stating that the snake was a harmless one. By this time the three motor boys, and some of their friends, had managed to capture most of the other specimens, and restore them to the green box. The crowd quieted down, and Uriah Snodgrass made a hasty examination to see if he had all his treasures.
“Any missing?” asked Jerry, trying not to laugh at his eccentric friend.
“There seems to be a pink flea gone,” was the answer. Then, addressing the throng, the scientist asked: “Has anyone a pink flea?”
“My dog has lots of fleas, but I don’t know whether they’re pink or red,” replied an irreverent youth, and there was a laugh, which ended when a little girl cried out:
“There’s something like a pink mosquito biting me, mister.”
“Ha! That may be it. Let it bite you, little girl. It won’t hurt much,” the professor said, hurrying to the child. Then he gave a delighted cry. “It’s my pink flea! A very valuable specimen! Now I have all of them back again. You may start the airship, boys. I’ll have to put a new lock on my specimen box, I guess.”