“I saw him with the cat last,” I said; “you might go and look at her.”
He walked to the edge of the table, and said, “Why, he is asleep!” And so he was, with his head on the cat's chest, under her chin, which she had turned up; and she had put her front paws together over the top of his head. As for the others, I descried them sitting in a circle in a corner of the room, also very quiet. (I imagine they were a little afraid of doing much without Wag, and also of waking him.) But I could not make out what they were doing, so I asked Slim.
“Racing earwigs, I should think,” he said, with something of contempt.
“Well, I hope they won't leave them about when they go. I don't like earwigs.”
“Who does?” he said; “but they'll take them away all right; they're prize ones, some of them.”
I went over and looked at the racing for a little. The course was neatly marked out with small lights sprouting out of the boards, and the circle was at the winning-post, the starters being at the other end, some six feet away. I watched one heat. The earwigs seemed to me neither very speedy nor very intelligent, and all except one were apt to stop in mid-course and engage in personal encounters with each other.
I was beginning to wonder how long this would go on, when Wag woke up. Like most of us, he was not willing to allow that he had been asleep.
“I thought I'd just lie down a bit,” he said, “and then I didn't want to bustle your cat, so I stopped there. And now I want to know—Slim, I say, what was it you were asking me?”
“Me asking you? I don't know.”
“Oh, yes, you do; what he was doing the other time before we came in.”