'Perhaps not. But then, Solomon or not Solomon, how am I to know which sting and which don't?'
'Experientia docet, Archie.'
Archie shuddered.
'Again, there are spiders. Oh, they do frighten me. They're as big as lobsters. Ugh!'
'Well, they won't hurt. They help to catch the other things!'
'Yes, and that's just the worst of it. First a lot of creepies come in to suck your blood and inject poison into your veins, to say nothing of half scaring a fellow to death; and then a whole lot of flying creepies, much worse than the former, come in to hunt them up; and bats come next, to say nothing of lizards; and what with the buzzing and singing and hopping and flapping and beating and thumping, poor me has to lie awake half the night, falling asleep towards morning to dream I'm in purgatory.'
'Poor you indeed!' said Dugald.
'You have told me, too, I must sleep in the dark, but I want to know what is the good of that when about one half of those flying creepies carry a lamp each, and some of them two. Only the night before last I awoke in a fright. I had been dreaming about the great sea-serpent, and the first thing I saw was a huge creature about as long as a yard stick wriggling along my mosquito curtains.'
'Ah! How could you see it in the dark?'
'Why, the beggar carried two lamps ahead of him, and he had a smaller chap with a light. Ugh!'