to the lace curtains.

The firemen put out the fire and most of our furniture.

Your cousin was also much put out when I spanked him.

We hope to recover from the excitement before the next Fourth, but your Aunt hopes that somebody will soon invent a new style of noise, which will not be so full of concussion.

Yours with love,
UNCLE PETER.

CHAPTER IV

JOHN HENRY ON MOSQUITOES

When Peaches and I were married we were sentenced to live in one of those 8x9 Harlem people-coops, where they have running gas on every floor and hot and cold landlords and self-folding doors, and janitors with folding arms, and all that sort of thing.

Immense!

When we moved into the half-portion dwelling house last spring I said to the janitor, "Have you any mosquitoes in the summer?"

The janitor was so insulted he didn't feel like taking a drink for ten minutes.

"Mosquitoes!" he shouted; "such birds of prey were never known in these apartments. We have piano beaters and gas meters, but never such criminals as mosquitoes."

With these kind words I was satisfied.

For weeks I bragged about my Harlem flat for which no mosquito could carry a latch-key.

The janitor said so, and his word was law.

I looked forward to a summer without pennyroyal on the mantelpiece or witch hazel on the shin bone, and was content.

But one night in the early summer I got all that was coming to me and I got it good.

In the middle of the night I thought I heard voices in the room and I sat up in bed.

"I wonder if it's second-story men," I whispered to myself, because my wife was away at the seashore.

She had gone off to the shimmering sands and left me chained to the post of duty, and I tell you, boys, it's an awful thing when your wife quits you that way and you have to drag the post of duty all over town in order to find a cool place.

Wives may rush away to the summer resorts where all is gayety, and where every guess they make at the bill of fare means a set-back in the bank account; but the husbands must labor on through the scorching days and in the evenings climb the weary steps to the roof gardens.

"Ping-ding-a-zing-a-boom!" exclaimed the voices on the other side of the bed.

"If they are after my diamonds," I moaned, "they will lose money," and then I reached under the pillow for the revolver I never owned.

"Ping-ding-a-zing-a-boom!" went the conversation on the 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