“All right,” he said, nodding at me; “did I hear you say you didn't like earwigs? That's worth remembering, Slim.”
This reduced me at once; I tried to point out that he had begun it, and that it would be a mean revenge, and very hard on the earwigs, if he filled my room with them, for I should be obliged to kill all I could.
“Why,” he said, “they needn't be real earwigs; my own tickle every bit as much as real ones.”
This was no better for me, and I tried to make more appeals to his better feelings. He did not seem to be listening very attentively, though his eyes were fixed on me.
“What's that on your neck?” he said suddenly, and at the same moment I felt a procession of legs walking over my skin. I brushed at it hastily, and something seemed to fall on the table. “No, the other side I mean,” said he, and again I felt the same horrid tickling and went through the same exercises, with a face, I've no doubt, contorted with terror. Anyhow, it seemed to amuse them very much; Wag, in fact, was quite unable to speak, and could only point. It was dull of me not to have realized at once that these were “his” earwigs and not real ones. But now I did, and though I still felt the tickling, I did not move, but sat down and gazed severely at him. Soon he got the better of his mirth and said, “I think we are quits now.” Then, with sudden alarm, “I say, what's become of the others? The bell hasn't gone, has it?”
“How should I know?” I said. “If you hadn't been making all this disturbance, perhaps we might have heard it.”
He took a flying leap—an extraordinary feat it was—from the edge of the table to a chair in the window, scrambled up to the sill, and gazed out. “It's all right,” he said, in a faint voice of infinite relief; let himself down limply to the floor, and climbed slowly up my leg to his former place.
“Well,” I said, “the bell hasn't gone, it seems, but where are the rest? I've hardly seen anything of them.”
“Oh, you go and find 'em, Slim; I'm worn out with all these frights.”
Slim went to the farther end of the table, prospected, and returned. He reported them “all right, but they're having rather a slow time of it, I think.” I, too, got up, walked round, and looked; they were seated in a solemn circle on the floor round the cat, who was now curled up and fast asleep on a round footstool. Not a word was being said by anybody. I thought I had better address them, so I said: