"Why should you expect to sue a moth for damages any more than to have a mosquito indicted for assault?" suggested the Poet.
"Oh, as for that," said the Idiot, "you can treat the mosquito without much difficulty. He merits capital punishment, and if you are yourself alert you can squash him at the moment of his crime. But the moth is different. You are absolutely helpless in the face of him. He works in secret."
"I am told that there are such things as camphor-balls," observed the Poet.
"There are," said the Idiot. "And I truly think the moth enjoys them as much as a young girl enjoys a military ball. Whenever we give a camphor-ball the moths attend, and as far as I can find out dance all through it. They seem to enjoy functions of that nature. Furthermore, I have yet to meet the man who likes to go about in a suit of clothes that smells like a drug-store. I don't. I hate the odor of camphor, and if I have my choice of going to a dinner in a perforated dress-suit or in one that is redolent of the camphor-ball, I prefer the one with holes in it. What I can't understand is why a race as proud as the one to which you and I belong should have to knuckle under to an inferior lot of insects such as the moth represents."
[Illustration: "'THE LION, THE ELEPHANT, THE TIGER, ALL HAVE THEIR WORK TO DO'"]
"I suppose there is something about it that we cannot understand," said the Poet, dreamily. "All created things have their uses. The lion, the elephant, the tiger, the boa-constrictor, all have their work to do in life. Even the mosquito has his mission, whatever it may be. You must admit this. Why not, therefore, admit that the moth serves a purpose in the great scheme of life?"
"My dear Poet," said the Idiot, "far be it from me to deny the truth of what you say. There is hardly a living creature that I have ever encountered in all my life that has not had some truly utilitarian quality in its make-up. The lion is a splendid creature, and with the bear and the fox and the rhinoceros and the tapir he serves a purpose. They at least teach boys geography, and teach it interestingly. The boy who knows where the tapir hath its lair knows more geography than I do. My son Tommy has learned more of geography from a visit to the circus where those animals are shown than he ever learned from books. I can quite see likewise the utilitarian value of the mosquito. He keeps the sea-shore from being overcrowded, and he prevents some people from sleeping too much. He is an accomplished vocalist, and from my own point of view is superior to a Wagner opera, since Wagner opera puts me to sleep, while the magnificent discords of the mosquito keep me awake. But the moth is beyond me. What his contribution to the public welfare may be I cannot reason out, although I have tried."