“Uh—I don’t know as I want to,” replied Ned, hanging back. “He might transfer his affections to me.”
“Oh, please get him!” begged the scientist.
“I’ll show you how,” said Jerry. “Let me get that cyanide bottle from under your arm, Professor. I’ll open it and hold it near the beetle. The fumes will stupefy him, and he’ll drop in. Then I can cork him up.”
“Good!” cried Professor Snodgrass.
Jerry took the poison bottle, which contained in the bottom plaster of Paris, mixed with the deadly cyanide of potassium. The fumes of this are deadly to all insects in a very short time, killing them without pain.
Holding the open bottle close under the beetle that was clinging to the professor’s thumb, but taking care to keep his own face well away from the vial, Jerry waited. In a few seconds the pincers of the beetle relaxed. A few seconds more and it fell off into the wide-mouthed bottle. Jerry quickly corked it up, and handed it to the professor.
“Ah, thank you, my boy, thank you!” exclaimed the scientist. “That is a very rare specimen. I am glad to get it.”
“As glad as he was to get you,” said Jerry with a smile. “It certainly is a large beetle.”
“And he certainly pinched,” murmured the professor, rubbing his thumb, on which were a few drops of blood. “I think I had better use a little peroxide to avoid infection.”
This excitement over, supper was served. As they all stood on the main deck, with darkness settling down, Jerry, looking over to the west, while the motorship moved slowly along, remarked: