Mad Scientists' Club by Bertrand R. Brinley, Charles Geer Page B

declared, pointing at Dinky Poore and Freddy Muldoon "That little freckled one there saw the key fall out of my shirt when I bent over to get a rabbit out of a snare. An' he wouldn't leave off till I told him the whole story. That one's the most curious kid I ever did see!"
    "There remains one matter to be cleared up," Mr. Willis interrupted, clearing his throat. "Miss Daphne Muldoon has reminded me that at the time of the robbery the bank had advertised a reward of five thousand dollars in the Mammoth Falls Gazette . I believe the directors of the bank will sustain me in the opinion that the offer still stands."
    When Mr. Willis said this, all the spectators started to clap their hands and shout, "Hear! Hear!" Mr. Willis held up his hand for silence.
    "I just want to announce," he said, "that the members of the Mad Scientists' Club and Miss Daphne Muldoon are the logical recipients of this reward. I have discussed it with them, and they have asked that half the reward money be given to the university's medical school, and the other half to Elmer Pridgin. I don't know what the medical school had to do with this matter, but I am sure the directors of the bank will have no objection."
    It was several days later that we all hiked out to Elmer Pridgin's cabin, where Mr. Willis and Mayor Scragg presented him with his share of the reward money. Henry wanted Elmer to have the infrared photograph our camera had made of him the night we bugged the cannon with detectors. Elmer looked at the photo and scratched his head.
    "I don't never go out there after dark, because it's too sceery," he said. "But that sure is a durned good likeness of my daddy, and I do thank ya' fur it!"
    Not so many people have picnics at Memorial Point any more.

    The Unidentified Flying Man of Mammoth Falls
    (c) 1961 by Bertrand R. Brinley
Illustrations by Charles Geer
    DINKY POORE AND FREDDY MULDOON found the mannequin in the city dump. Some department store had thrown it away because its face was chipped in one little place. But it was handsome, like all window dummies. Little Dinky and pudgy Fred dragged it all the way to Jeff Crocker's barn and set it up in a corner of our laboratory.
    Henry Mulligan didn't like this at all. He said we shouldn't be cluttering up the clubhouse with a lot of junk. But when we put the matter to a vote, Henry lost out. Homer Snodgrass, who is almost as brilliant as Henry and Jeff, pointed out that we could make good use of the mannequin for anatomy lessons and recommended we add this subject to our training program.
    Freddy Muldoon and Mortimer Dalrymple were appointed a committee of two to paint the human circulatory system on the dummy's front; but they never got around to it. The thing just stood there in the corner for months until everybody got sick of looking at it. Finally Mortimer pulled an old nylon stocking over its head and dubbed it the Invisible Man. The name seemed like a good one, and that's what we always called it -- until Henry got his brilliant idea.
    We all arrived at the clubhouse one day to find Henry sitting in a chair in the middle of the floor, staring at the mannequin as if he had never seen it before. He stared at it for a long time. Then he pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up onto his forehead and stared up at the ceiling of the lab.
    There was the usual reverent silence. Henry always claimed that when he tilted his head back it made the blood flow to the back of his brain, which was where he kept his best ideas. Then he'd tilt his head forward again and a good idea would pop out.
    It worked this time, all right. What came out of Henry, when he finally brought his eyes down from the ceiling, was probably the zaniest idea he has ever had.
    "I think we could make this thing fly," said Henry.
    "Holy smokes!" said Dinky Poore. "Are you some kind of a nut or something? Don't answer that."
    "It's perfectly simple," said Henry wiping his glasses. "I think we can make the Invisible Man fly, and create a real