Skiddoo! | Page 7

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 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. We do not belong to the
pity push. Willie, if the gentleman kicks bore a tunnel through his
cerebellum, near the medusa, and I will jump in his alimentary canal
and take a swim--ping-ding-a-zing-a-boom!"
Then, just as these two ferocious members of the Stinger Family rushed
at me, I awoke with a cry for help.
There was not a mosquito in the room.
Thank Heaven, it was only a dream!
At the door, however, was a messenger with a special delivery letter
from my wife.
The letter read, "Dear John, I only want to say that
Cheesehurst-by-the-Sea would be a nice place if a person could wear
armor plate to avoid the mosquitoes. I have rubbed my complexion
with peppermint, and I have worn smoke-sticks in my hair till I burned
my pompadour, but the mosquitoes still look upon me as their meal
ticket. I expect to insult everybody present and leave for home
to-morrow. Lovingly, thy wife."
My dream was out.
I don't want to change the subject too abruptly, but you remember
Uncle William, don't you?
Well, once upon a time, Uncle Bill was clear daffy on the subject of
mosquitoes.
He invented more kerosene tablets to poison 'em and set more traps to
catch 'em than any pest-remover in the business.
I must tell you about the time he was one of a committee of three

appointed by Budweiser College or Anheuser University, or some such
concern, to study the mosquito at close range in its native jungles.
The committee consisted of Professor Kenneth Glueface, Professor
Oscar Soupnoodle, a German gentleman with thistles in his
conversation, and my Uncle, Mr. William Gray.
The committee decided that the best way to study the New Jersey
mosquito would be to live in their gloomy haunts and forsake
civilization for the time being.
In accordance with this idea they had the Carnegie Steel Company
build