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Jonkin, Professor Jephtha. Professor Jephtha Jonkin was created by Howard R. Garis (Tom Cardiff, Larry Dexter, Sherman Ford, Dick Hamilton, Amos Henderson, Motion Picture Chums, Moving Picture Boys, Mystery Boys (I), Nat Ridley, Rocket Riders, Smith Brothers, Don Sturdy, Tom Swift, Teddy (II), Venture Boys) and appeared in thirteen stories in Argosy from 1905 to 1907, beginning with “Professor Jonkin’s Cannibal Plant” (Argosy, Aug. 1905).

Professor Jephtha Jonkin is an Unlucky Inventor. He is a brilliant but eccentric scientist whose experiments usually go astray. When he feeds a Brazilian pitcher plant beefsteak, it grows to enormous size. When he attempts to crossbreed honey bees and lightning bugs, to create insects which work longer, they begin attacking people. When Jonkin attempts to create a beanstalk which will grow into the sky, as the fairy tale beanstalk did, the plant grows several feet per minute and entangles the professor. And when he attempts to crossbreed an elephant and a mosquito, he creates a blood-sucking elephant rather than a winged elephant.

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