"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.
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"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. Be-
fore 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.
The Mosquito Man now began to talk mosquitoes to every one
who would listen and to many who did not want to listen. " That
bug," the old settlers called him at the time — for old settlers are
very settled in their ways. The young women at the Country
Club, whenever they saw him coming, made bets as to whether
he would talk mosquitoes — and he always did. Every property-
owner in the township was asked for a subscription, and some
gave generously and some gave niggardly and some did not
give at all. The subscriptions were voluntary, for no one
could be forced to remove a mosquito-breeding nuisance from
his property. This was in 1911, and only in 1915 has a mos-
quito law been passed in Connecticut. The Mosquito Man
was forced to use 'indirect influence," which does not expedite
matters.
