"Tr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r," sounded shrilly through the room, louder and louder.
"Electric bell?" exclaimed the children with blank faces.
"Oh, you dear new chum," said Mr. Orban, bursting into peals of laughter, accompanied by Bob, "that isn't an electric bell; it's a cicada."
"A cicada!" repeated Miss Chase.
"Yes; a kind of grasshopper, or cricket, you know," Mrs. Orban explained, looking much amused. "He is up there in the roof. I am afraid you will have to stop, for as long as you go on so will he."
"How very ill-mannered of him," said Miss Chase.
"Let's play something instead," said Peter, who was getting sleepy, but would not own it.
He was not really fond of music—Bob's comic songs excepted.
The game was begun, and going merrily, when suddenly there rose on the night air such an appalling howl that Miss Chase started and turned pale. To her astonishment, when she looked round the table, she found that no one but herself was at all disturbed by the sound.
"You to play, I believe, Miss Chase," said Bob, who sat opposite her.