other side of the bed.

   "There is something doing here," I remarked to myself, while I wished for daylight with both hands.

   "Ping-ding-a-zing-a-boom!" went the conversation on the other side of the bed.

   "Who is it?" I whispered, waiting for a reply, but hoping no one would answer me.

   "Ping-ding-a-zing-a-boom!" said the same mysterious voices.

   Then suddenly it struck me—the janitor was a liar.

   Those voices in the night emanated from a convention of mosquitoes.

   In that nerve-destroying moment I recollected my parting admonition to my wife when she went away, "Darling, remember, money is not everything in this world and don't write home to me for any more. And remember, also, that when the Jersey mosquito makes you forget the politeness due to your host, flash your return ticket in his face and rush hither to your happy little home in Harlem, where the mosquito never warbles and stingeth not like a serpent, are you hep?"

   And now it was all off.

   Never more could we go away to the seashore for two expensive weeks and realize that we would be more comfortable at home, like millions of other people do every year.

   "Ping-ding-a-zing-a-boom!" shrieked those relentless voices in the darkness.

   "Do you want my money or my life?" I inquired, tremblingly.

   "We desire to bite our autograph on your wish-bone," one voice replied pleasantly.

   "Great Scott!" I shouted, "why do you wish to bite one who is a stranger to you?"

   "You have a wife who is spending a few weeks and a few dollars at the Jersey seashore, is it not so?" inquired the hoarsest voice.

   "Heaven help me, I have," I answered, manfully.

   "She is at Cheesehurst-by-the-Sea?" that awful voice went on.

   "She is," I admitted it.

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