"All right, then," answered the placated bungalow-owner, "I thought you'd fix it up if you found out about it. I certainly wouldn't have bought around Darien if you had not cleared this place of mosquitoes."
The aggressive one plunged into the Connecticut woods and began his search for possible mosquito-breeding spots. He was the "Mosquito Man," the self-appointed guardian of the Connecticut coast from Stamford to Westport.
He was not born a Mosquito Man at all—in fact, he did not become one until he was forty years old and had retired from business because he had made enough money to rest and "enjoy life." But he did not rest, and did not get enjoyment, for the mosquitoes had likewise leased his place on the Sound and were making good their title.
Came then big fat mosquitoes from the swamp. Came mosquitoes from the salt marshes. Some lighted on the owner's nose and some looked for his ankles, and found them. Three days of this sort of rest made him decide to move away. Then, because he was aggressive, he became the Mosquito Man. The idea occurred to him when he had gone over to a distant island and was watching the building of houses.
"This place," he said to the head carpenter, "is going to be a little heaven."
"More like a little other place," growled the head carpenter. "Here they've dug out the centre of the island and carted it to the beach to make hills for the houses to be built on. One good rain will fill their little heaven with mosquitoes. Why don't the people around here drain their country?"
That night the Mosquito Man telephoned to a drainage expert in New York and demanded that he come out the next day.
"I don't like to work on Sunday," the expert objected.
"It is absolutely essential that you come at once," he was told. "Can you take the first train?"
The first train and the expert arrived in Darien at 5:51. Before the day was over a contract had been drawn up to the purport that the expert would drain the salt marshes between Stamford and South Norwalk for $4,000.