age Jones to Mr. Fleming, "I'm going back to New
York. If any collectors come chasing to you for luna moths, don't deal
with them. Refer them to me, please. Here is my card."

"Your orders shall be obeyed," said the older man, his beady eyes
twinkling. "But why, in the name of all that's unheard of, should
collectors come bothering me about luna moths?"

"Because of an announcement to this effect which will appear in the next
number of the National Science Weekly, and in coming issues of the New
York Evening Register."

He handed out a rough draft of this advertisement:

"For Sale--Two largest known specimens
of Tropaea luna, unmounted; respectively
10 and 11 inches spread. Also various
other specimens from collection of late
Gerald Moseley, of Conn. Write for
particulars. Jones, Room 222 Astor
Court Temple, New York."

"What about further danger here?" inquired Mr. Fleming, as Average Jones
bade him good-by. "Would we better run that warning of poor Moseley's,
after all?"

For reply Jones pointed out the window. A late season whirl of snow
enveloped the streets.

"I see," said the old man. "The frost. Well Mr. Mysterious Jones, I
don't know what you're up to, but you've given me an interesting day.
Let me know what comes of it."

On the train back to New York, Average Jones Wrote two letters. One
was to the Denny Research Laboratories in St. Louis, the other to the
Department of Agriculture at Washington. On the following morning he
went to Dorr's office. That young chemist was in a recalcitrant frame of
mind.

"I've done about ten dollars' worth of fumigating and a hundred dollars'
worth of damage," he said, "and now, I'd like to have a Missouri sign.
In other words, I want to be shown. What did some skunk want to kill my
dogs for?"

"He didn't."

"But they're dead, aren't they?"

"Accident."

"What kind of an accident?"

"The kind in which the innocent bystander gets the worst of it. You're
the one it was meant for."

"Me?"

"Certainly. You'd probably have got it if the dog hadn't."

The speaker examined the keyhole, then walked over to the radiator
and looked over, under and through it minutely. "Nothing there,"
he observed; and, after extending his examination to the windows,
book-shelf and desk, added:

"I guess we might have spared the fumigation. However, the safest side
is the best."

"What is it? Some new game in projective germs?" demanded th