the Sound.

Oliver's key clicked in the lock--this was fortunately one of the
times when four-year-old Jane Ellen, who went about after sunset in a
continual, piteous fear of "black men wif masks," had omitted to put
the chain on the door before being carried mutinously to bed. Oliver
switched on the hall light and picked up a letter and a folded note from
the card tray.

"Ted, Ollie and Dickie will share that little bijou, the sleeping porch,
unless Ted prefers the third-story bathtub," the note read. "Breakfast
at convenience for those that can get it themselves--otherwise at nine.
And DON'T wake Dickie up.

"MOTHER."

Oliver passed it to Ted, who read it, grinned, and saluted, nearly
knocking over the hatrack.

"For _God's_ sake!" said Oliver in a piercing whisper, "Jane Ellen will
think that's Indians!"

Both listened frantically for a moment, holding their breath. But there
was no sound from upstairs except an occasional soft rumbling. Oliver
had often wondered what would happen if the whole sleeping family
chanced to breathe in and out in unison some unlucky night. He could
see the papery walls blown apart like scraps of cardboard--Aunt Elsie
falling, falling with her bed from her little bird-house under the
eaves, giving vent to one deaf, terrified "Hey--what's that?" as she
sank like Lucifer cast from Heaven inexorably down into the laundry
stove, her little tight, white curls standing up on end....

Ted had removed his shoes and was making for the stairs with the
exaggerated caution of a burglar in a film.

"'Night!" called Oliver softly.

"G' night! Where's my bed--next the wall? Good--then I won't step
on Dickie. And if you fall over me when you come in, I'll bay like a
bloodhound!"

"I'll look out. Be up in a minute myself. Going to write a letter."

"So I'd already deduced, Craig Kennedy, my friend. Well, give her my
love!"

He smiled like a bad little boy and disappeared round the corner. A
stair creaked--they were the kind of stairs that always creaked like old
women's bones, when you tried to go up them quietly. There was the
sound of something soft stubbing against something hard and a muffled
"_Sonofa--_"

"What's matter?"

"Oh, nothing. Blame near broke my toe on Jane Ellen's doll's porcelain
head. 'S all right. 'Night."

"'Night." Then in an admonitory sotto-voce, "Remember, if you wake
Dickie, you've got to tell him stories till he goes to sleep again, or
he'll wake up every