n 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.