Welcome to the site 4plus2
Skype changed servers and ALL THOSE OLD VERSIONS DO NOT WORK ANYMORE!!!!!!
I used to run 0.97.040 until they disabled it from connecting
The newest skype i can run on Win98se is version 2.0.0.73 (Runs as good as 0.97.040 did) But its about 19M!!!!!! (I only have 56M of ram and it ran OK when i tested it)
Download version 2.0.0.73 here > http://download.oldversion.com/skype20073.exe