"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.

"Well, yesterday evening she slapped her forehead suddenly and killed
the bread-winner of this family," the voice shrieked, "and we are here
for revenge!"

"What are your names, please?" I whispered.

"My name is Clementina Stinger, and with me is my son, little Willie
Stinger, formerly of Cheesehurst-by-the-Sea," the voice answered.

I sat there listening while my knees shook for the drinks.

"We looked up your wife's home address and came hither to board with
you, because she upset our bread-winner's apple cart," the voice went
on, threateningly.

"Willie, my son, get a light luncheon from the gentleman's medulla
oblongata, and I will eat a small steak from his solar
plexus--ping-ding-a-zing-a-boom!"

"Have you no pity?" I said, pleadingly.

"Pity!" said Clementina--"pity! you ask for pity when my forefathers
were the first to land on the only Plymouth Rock in the meadows of
Hackensack! I wish you to know that the proud blood of many victims
rushes through the veins of the Stinger Family. W