Next morning at about half-past six I was roused from sleep by a
tremendous commotion in the room adjoining mine: cries and shouts,
hurried trampings over the floor, blows on walls and windows and the
crash of overthrown furniture. However, before I could shake my sleep
off and get up to find out the cause, there were shouts of laughter, a
proof that no one had been killed or seriously injured, and I went to
sleep again.
At breakfast we met once more, and I was asked if I had been much
disturbed by the early morning noise and excitement. They proceeded to
explain that a wasp had got into the room of their friend - indicating
the elderly gentleman who had taken the head of the table; and as he
was an invalid and afraid of being stung, he had shouted to them to
come to his aid. They had tumbled out of bed and rushed in, and before
beginning operations had made him cover his face and head with the
bedclothes, after which they started hunting the wasp. But he was too
clever for them. They threw things at him and struck at him with their
garments, pillows, slippers, whatever came to hand, and still he
escaped, and in rushing round in their excitement everything in the
room except the bedstead was overthrown. At last the wasp, tired out or
terrified dropped to the floor, and they were on him like a shot and
smashed him with the slippers they had in their hands.
"And you call yourselves religious men!" I remarked when they had
finished their story and looked at me expecting me to say something.
They stared astonished at me, then exchanged glances and burst out
laughing, and laughed as if they had heard something too excruciatingly
funny. The elderly clergyman who had been saved from the winged man-
eating dragon that had invaded his room managed at last to recover his
gravity, and his friends followed suit; they then all three silently
looked at me again as if they expected to hear something more.
Not to disappoint them, I started telling them about the life and work
of a famous nobleman, one of England's great pro-consuls, who for many
years had ruled over various countries in distant regions of the earth,
and many barbarous and semi-savage nations, by whom he was regarded,
for his wisdom and justice and sympathy with the people he governed,
almost as a god. This great man, who was now living in retirement at
home, had just founded a Society for the Protection of Wasps, and had
so far admitted two of his friends who were in sympathy with his
objects to membership.
