"But there is one other point of difference still queerer: they wear pajamas all day, while we wear them only at night."

Here I yawned. Always hate that heavy, historical, instructive stuff, you know. If you have to hear it, gives you headache, unless you can slip off to sleep first.

So I reached the letter up to Jenkins.

"Just run over the rest of it yourself, and see if he says anything about his present," I said, settling comfortably. Clever idea of mine, don't you think?

And I was just dropping my head to have a snug little nap--just a little forty, you know--when, dash me, if I didn't have another idea! Awfully annoying, time like that.

Mind is so devilish alert, dash it! Always doing things like that; can't seem to get over it, you know. And this ripping idea that bobbed up now and got me all roused up was nothing more or less than to untie the string myself and see what the thing was. See?

"I believe, sir," said Jenkins, looking up, "the gentleman has sent you--h'm--has sent you--"

"By Jove, a suit of pajamas!" I exclaimed, holding them up.

It was neck and neck, but I beat Jenkins to it, after all!

"Gentleman says, sir," continued Jenkins, studying the letter, "that his present of a pair of pajamas may seem surprising, but you won't know how surprising until you have worn them."

"Jolly likely," I admitted, feeling the silk. By Jove, it was the finest, yet thinnest stuff I ever saw, soft as rose leaves and as filmy light as a spider's web. Not bad, that, for a comparison, eh? Caught the idea from a vase of full-blown roses that were beginning to shed their petals there on the table. And on one of the blossoms was a little brown spider. Catch the idea? Suggested spider's web, you know.

"They're rather red, sir," Jenkins commented dubiously.

Red? Well, I should say! My! How jolly red they were! We spread them under the light, and the red seemed to flow all over the table and fall from the edge. Why, they were as red as--

I tried to think of something they were as red as, but somehow I couldn't fetch the idea. I thought of red ink and blood and fireworks, but they didn't seem to be up to them at all. And a big, velvety petal that dropped from one of the crimson roses just seemed brown beside them.

And yet, dash it, I knew they reminded me of something, you know; I knew they _must_.

"They remind me--" I began, and had to pause--idea balked, you know.

"They remind me of--of--Jenkins, what do they remind me of?"

"Of _him_, sir," replied Jenkins promptly.

"Eh?"

"Old Memphis Tuffles, sir," explained Jenkins darkly. "I saw him once in a opera, and he was that red."

"By Jove!" I said thoughtfully, and fell to watching the little spider.

It was dropping a life-line or something down to the pajamas.

"But they say he ain't always red," Jenkins continued mysteriously. "A lady as is in the palmistry and card-reading line in Forty-second Street told me he turned black whenever he got down to business. Do you suppose that's where they get the idea of what they call black magic, sir?"

I answered absently, for I was wondering whether the little spider was curious about the jolly red color there below him. And just then Jenkins' hand went out and swept at the little thread. The spider dropped and shot into a fold of the pajamas.

"I say! Look out!" I exclaimed as Jenkins made another clutch. "Don't mash the beast on the silk; you'll ruin it--the silk, I mean!"

"There it goes, sir!" said Jenkins eagerly. "Over by your hand."

"No; by Jove; he's gone into a leg of the pajamas! Here, shake him out--gently now!"

Jenkins lifted the garment gingerly and lightly shook it. But nothing came forth.

"Why don't you look in the leg," I said, "and see if you can see it?"

Jenkins peered down one of the silken tubes and forthwith dropped it with a yell. He jumped back.

"Look out, sir," he cried excitedly; "don't touch 'em! There's a tarantula in there big as a sand crab, and it's alive."

"A tarantula? Nonsense! We don't have tarantulas in New York," I protested.

Jenkins gestured violently. "One's there, sir, anyhow! I saw one once on a bunch of bananas down in South Street. If they jump on you and bite, you might as well just walk around to the undertaker. A dago told me so."

I backed nervously from the crumpled crimson pile on the floor.

_Crimson?_

Of course, I knew it was crimson; it must be the shadow of the table there that made the things so dark--_black_, in fact. But my mind was on the tarantula; and I was thinking that it must have been wrapped with the pajamas. Yet I could not understand how this could be, considering how tightly the things had been rolled.

Anyhow, it was there; and Jenkins pointed excitedly.

"Look, sir! You can see it moving under the silk!"

By Jove, so you could! And the thing seemed nearly as big as a rat. It was making for the end of the leg. I climbed upon a chair.

"Get a club," I exclaimed, "and smash the thing as it comes out!"

Jenkins rushed out and returned with a bra.s.sie.

"Careful now," I warned from the chair. "Don't go and hit the dashed thing before it gets out, and make a devil of a mess on the silk! There it is--it's out! No, no--not yet! Wait, until it gets its whole body out! There now; he's drawing out his last beastly leg. Now--_now_ let drive!"

And he did, and seemed to hit the thing squarely.

I knelt on the chair and craned over, while Jenkins still held the stick tightly at the point where the thing had struck.

"Get him?" I queried. "Where is it?"

"That's it, sir," said Jenkins in an odd voice. "It ain't here."

"Why, dash it, I saw you strike the beast, right where you're holding that club."

"Mr. Lightnut, sir"--Jenkins spoke a little huskily and glanced around at me queerly--"will you look under the end of this stick and see if you see what I see?"

I climbed down and examined cautiously.

"Why, by Jove, it's the little spider!" I exclaimed, surprised.

"Exactly, sir; what's left." Jenkins took a deep breath.