“A dreamery, I’d call it. May I sit down? Are there devilkins here? There’s an elfkin, anyway,” she added, as a silvered dragon-fly hovered above her head inquisitively before darting away on his own concerns.
“One of my friends and specimens. I’m studying his methods of aviation with a view to making some practical use of what I learn, eventually.”
“Really? Are you an inventor, too? I’m crazy about aviation.”
“Ah, then you’ll be interested in this,” he said, now quite at his ease. “You know that the mosquito is the curse of the tropics.”
“Of other places, as well.”
“But in the tropics it means yellow fever, Chagres fever, and other epidemic illness. Now, the mosquito, as you doubtless realize, is a monoplane.”
“A monoplane?” repeated the girl, in some puzzlement. “How a monoplane?”
“I thought you claimed some knowledge of aviation. Its wings are all on one plane. The great natural enemy of the mosquito is the dragon-fly, one of which just paid you a visit. Now, modern warfare has taught us that the most effective assailant of the monoplane is a biplane. You know that.”
“Y-y-yes,” said the girl doubtfully.
“Therefore, if we can breed a biplane dragonfly in sufficient numbers, we might solve the mosquito problem at small expense.”