ampered with the fastening of the case, and the insects came out."

"I can offer personal testimony that they came out," said the colonel,
trying not to squirm. "They came, they saw, and they conquered. And
all I have to say is that I thank you for your interest in the matter,
but that we shall have to decline to add your new and very efficient,
but uncontrollable, weapon to the Allied armament."

"Does that mean you can't use the wasps?" asked the professor.

"I'm afraid it does," said the colonel. "You see they are too
uncertain--like the poison gas the Germans first used. It came back on
them. The wasps might do that to us."

"Yes," agreed the little scientist, "they might."

And then, as the last of the insects disappeared, and the headquarters
staff came back from various places of refuge, Professor Snodgrass
explained.

He had long wanted to do something to help the Allied cause, and
thought perhaps it might be along the line of his studies of insects.
Then the idea of wasps had come to him. He knew the vicious nature of
the insects, and how fearlessly they would attack anything in their
way. It was his idea that many thousands of the wasps might be
propagated in artificial nests and loosed on the German armies
preceding an attack by the Allies. The wasps would certainly cause
disorder, if not a rout, he thought, and so he had communicated his
idea to his friend, the colonel.

That is, he had communicated the fact that he had the idea, but he had
not disclosed the nature of the "new weapon," as he called it in a
note. Always willing to test anything new, the colonel had sent for
the professor, inviting him to bring a model of the "new weapon" with
him. The officer supposed the "weapon" might be a gun, projectile or
powder.

"The idea was a good one in theory," said Jerry, as he and his chums
went back with the professor, who carried the now empty black box.

"And it worked out all right in practice," declared Ned. "I never saw
a quicker retreat."

"The only thing that spoils it, as the colonel said," added Bob, "is
the inability of a wasp to distinguish between a friend and a foe. If
they could be trained, now----"

"We'll delegate that to you," put in Ned.

"No, thanks! I'm stung badly enough as it is."

And the professor, sadly shaking his head over the failure of his
scheme, went back to work further on his plan of making moving
pictures of insects hopping about under the stimulus of the noise o