ed to attention. He held
his finger over the light switch as I punched a pillow and rolled over
on the mattress.

"All right," I said; "push the jolly thing out." And with a click
darkness fell about me.

"Good night, sir," came Jenkins' voice softly.

"Night," I murmured faintly, and I was off.

Sometime, hours later, I awoke, and with a devilish yearning for a
smoke. It often takes me that way in the night.

I climbed out in the blackness and found my way into the other room. I
remembered exactly where I had dropped my cigarette case when we were
fooling with the pajamas by the table, and I found it without
difficulty.

In the act of stooping for it, my hand clutched the edge of the table
and I felt a spot yield under the pressure of my thumb. It was the
button controlling the bell to Jenkins' room.

"Lucky thing he sleeps like a jolly porpoise," I reflected.

I pushed a wicker arm-chair into the moonlight and breeze by a window,
and pulling a flame to a cigarette, leaned back, feeling jolly comfy.
For the breeze was ripping and delicious, and the delicate silk of the
pajamas flowed in little wavelets all the way from my heels to my neck.

And, thinking of the pajamas, I tried to fix my mind on it that I must
tell Jenkins to have me write that chap, Mastermann, and send him
another lot of those devilish good cigars he liked. I tried to recall
what Jenkins had said was the name of the brand--something deuced
clever, I remembered that much.

I was just about dropping off, when I heard some one hurrying along the
private hall leading from the back. Jenkins himself popped into the
room.

"Did you ring, sir?" he inquired, and advanced quickly.

And then, before I could think about it to reply, he halted suddenly,
almost pitching forward. Then, with a kind of wheezy howl, he sprang to
the wall. Next instant, I was blinking under the dazzling electrolier.

"Here, I say! Shut off that light!" I remonstrated, half blinded.

I heard a swift rush across the rugs, and the next thing I knew I was
roughly jerked from out my chair; strong fingers clutched my throat, and
I found myself glaring into a frightened but resolute face.

"Jen-Jenkins!" I tried to gasp, but only a gurgle came.

I was so taken unawares, I knew it must be some dashed dream. Perhaps
another minute, and I would wake up. But he gripped me tighter and shook
me like a rag.

"Say, who are you?" he hissed. "How did you get in here?"

And then,