tom and then break in," he said
in a resigned voice, into which, nevertheless, a note of hope seemed
also to have come. "First, however, I'm going to wait until morning."

And he sat down cross-legged in the hall a few yards from the bathroom
door and folded his arms.

* * * * *

So the long vigil commenced.

The Professor's family shared it and he offered no objection. Other and
sterner men, he told himself, might claim to be able successfully to
order their children to go to bed when there was a Martian locked in the
bathroom, but he would like to see them faced with the situation.

Finally dawn began to seep from the bedrooms. When the bulb in the hall
had grown quite dim, the Professor unfolded his arms.

Just then, there was a loud splashing in the bathroom. The Professor's
family looked toward the door. The splashing stopped and they heard the
Martian moving around. Then the door opened and the Martian appeared in
the Professor's gray pin-stripe suit. His mouth curled sharply downward
in a broad alien smile as he saw the Professor.

"Good morning!" the Martian said happily. "I never slept better in my
life, even in my own little wet bed back on Mars."

He looked around more closely and his mouth straightened. "But where did
you all sleep?" he asked. "Don't tell me you stayed dry all night! You
_didn't_ give up your only bed to me?"

His mouth curled upward in misery. "Oh, dear," he said, "I'm afraid I've
made a mistake somehow. Yet I don't understand how. Before I studied
you, I didn't know what your sleeping habits would be, but that question
was answered for me--in fact, it looked so reassuringly homelike--when I
saw those brief TV scenes of your females ready for sleep in their
little tubs. Of course, on Mars, only the fortunate can always be sure
of sleeping wet, but here, with your abundance of water, I thought there
would be wet beds for all."

He paused. "It's true I had some doubts last night, wondering if I'd
used the right words and all, but then when you rapped 'Good night' to
me, I splashed the sentiment back at you and went to sleep in a wink.
But I'm afraid that somewhere I've blundered and--"

"No, no, dear chap," the Professor managed to say. He had been waving
his hand in a gentle circle for some time in token that he wanted to
interrupt. "Everything is quite all right. It's true we stayed up all
night, but please consider that as a watch--an honor guard,