He gave a wide-awake yell that time, and rolled backward out of bed. One jump and he had cleared the room, going up stairs yelling: "Snakes, mamma, s-n-a-k-e-s!"
I let him go. Nay, I locked the door behind him and went to sleep.
The breakfast bell rang twice, but I did not hear it. Little Sister had to come to awaken me. They were all at breakfast when I came down, Thesis, the baby, and the boy.
"How soundly you must have slept!" she said, smiling. "I forgot to tell you that the dear little fellow sometimes walks in his sleep; and do you know, this morning I found him fast asleep on the first stair landing?"
Little Sister, however, was wiser. She looked at me in her quaint way and said, funnily: "Uncle Jack, you look real tired; like you'd dropped your candy last night, sure enough."
CHAPTER IV
MY FIRST AUTOMOBILE
It was one of those beautiful December mornings when the frost had hung his laces everywhere, and a hunting fever fairly burned within me. It comes over me at times, and then—well—I run away and obey it.
As though through mental telepathy my telephone rang. "Hello! Is that you, Jack? This is Horace Raymond, your old neighbor. I'm in town to-day. Ever see such a pretty day? Let's take a quail hunt."
"Glad to hear your voice again, Horace. No, I never did. I am ready for a quail hunt any day except Sunday. Never had any luck on Sunday at all."