92 The Book of Bugs. 



live in a fiat it may be that you are not the first tenant. 

 If you want to gain a poor opinion of people, just take 

 their flat when they move out. It may be, too, that 

 somebody in the flat overhead or the flat beneath is 

 afflicted with them. They come in by way of the water- 

 pipes. Maybe they were in the van in which your goods 

 were moved. Maybe they came in on the old cloths the 

 painters put down when they re-decorated the place. 

 There are a thousand ways by which they enter, and they 

 know them all and more too. Oh, they're cunning ! They 

 don't ring the bell and shout up the speaking-tube to let 

 you know they've come to pay you a good long visit. 

 The first hint you have that Pa and Ma and Aunt Allie 

 and Uncle George and all the children have come and 

 brought their trunks is when you begin to dream of 

 mosquitoes. From that time on there is trouble. 



It used to be that everybody had wooden bedsteads, 

 with beautiful big head-boards carved nicely and made 

 in several panels. They are not so much in style as they 

 used to be. In fact, if you try to sell one to the second- 

 hand man he will pay you kindling-wood prices for all 

 that lovely carved wood, and not a cent more. The trouble 

 with the wooden bedstead was that it was one of the most 

 carefully planned places imaginable for B flats to play 

 hide-and-go-seek in. You need not count a hundred, 

 but say right off : 



" A bushel o' wheat, 

 A bushel o' rye ; 

 All that aint ready 

 Holler 'Nay, I!'" 



and you would never hear a B flat even cheep " Nay, I ! ' 

 because they would all have found a place where you 

 could not spy them. And as if there weren't cracks 

 enough naturally, the cabinet-makers used to bore two 



