Colonel Effingham's Raid

Col. Will Seaborn Effingham:
My people have always been soldiers. My grandfather fell at Chickamauga; his grandfather at Saratoga. When Beauregard fired on Fort Sumter, my own father, unfortunately was only nine.

Earl Hoats:
That WAS a little YOUNG.

Col. Will Seaborn Effingham:
I, myself, was wounded at San Juan Hill. I was at the seige of Panama. For fifty years, mister editor, the forces of civilization had been held at bay on the Isthmus... unable to join the waters of two great oceans. And do you know what blocked them? Gatling guns? Mini-balls? Superior forces? Guerilla bands? [shakes his head "no] Mosquitoes.

Earl Hoats:
Well, perhaps one of my boys could fix up a little story for Sunday...

Col. Will Seaborn Effingham:
Stegomyia faciata. [scientific name of mosquito] For half a century, the enemy - less than a quarter of an inch in stature - blocked the economic march of a nation of a hundred million people. It was insupportable.

Earl Hoats:
Well, Colonel...

Col. Will Seaborn Effingham:
We blockaded General Stegomyia, to wit: the mosquito. We cut him off from reinforcements. We hammered his communications.

Earl Hoats:
So you're back in Fredericksville for good, now, Colonel?

Col. Will Seaborn Effingham:
We sprayed his concentrations with oil. We screened his wells. We put fifth columns of fish in the water to attack his ammunition dumps. But, more of that another day.

Col. Will Seaborn Effingham:
I don't see why our biggest and most important project... the administration of government... should be handed over - lock, stock and barrel - to a bunch of incompetents!

Albert 'Al' Marbury:
Well, you're not going to see the mayor right now, are you?

Col. Will Seaborn Effingham:
Soon as I can change my clothes.

Albert 'Al' Marbury:
Well, there's no hurry, cousin Willie. Any old time will do.

Col. Will Seaborn Effingham:
Son, when you get to be sixty-five it's a good time to hurry!

Ella Sue Dozier:
Then you're not discouraged, Colonel?

Col. Will Seaborn Effingham:
Discouragement has no more place in a soldier's equipment than an inner-spring mattress.

Earl Hoats:
Here's our chance to get in solid with the folks down at city hall... you know, hit the civic leader angle, talk about what he did for the city.

Dewey:
FOR, or TO ?

Albert 'Al' Marbury:
Politics and polite society just don't mix!