"Why, that's my log!" exclaimed Mrs. Whoffin, from the back of the room. "Dear! dear! Why hasn't anyone put it on the fire?" The story waited while Mrs. Whoffin scurried forward and personally supervised the placing of the log upon the andirons, and then sat down beside the hearth opposite Polly.
"Do go on!" cried several voices. "You stopped in the most exciting part."
The narrator, looking daggers at Mrs. Whoffin, paused long enough to show that she didn't _have_ to go on unless she wanted to, and then resumed her tale:
"Suddenly, as he lay there in the haunted room, on the very bed where the old man had been murdered, he felt an invisible hand on the bedclothes."
Mrs. Whoffin shuddered, and a large black ant peered out of a hole in the log to see what was going on.
"Then he felt a second hand more terrifying than the first."
Beholding his home in flames, the ant rushed back indoors to spread the alarm. Along the highways of the interior he sped, a second Paul Revere, rousing the sleeping insects, of which there were many.
The exodus of Paul's friends proceeded in orderly fashion. "Larvæ and eggs first," was their order. Carrying their infants upon their backs, they filed out of the subway openings in steady processions.
"The hands clutched the covers just above his feet. Fear paralyzed him so that he could neither move nor cry out."
A party of refugees applied to Mrs. Whoffin for shelter. She was so absorbed in the story that she did not see them.
"Then the fingers began to creep up and up, up and up. His flesh tingled with horror."
Mrs. Whoffin quivered like an aspen leaf. She breathed hard, her eyes nearly popping. Other people began to feel creepy.
Mrs. Whoffin uttered a piercing shriek, and clasped her knee with both hands. She was invaded. Then Polly screamed, and Carson began to slap himself on various parts of the anatomy. There was a general panic. Girls squealed and, clambering frantically upon chairs, shook out their lifted skirts; young men stamped about wildly, mashing ants and people's toes in equal numbers. Mrs. Whoffin, tormented from head to foot, galloped in circles, moaning, "Oh mercy! Oh mercy!"
"Save me, George!" cried Polly, clinging to his arm.
"Yes, darling!" he answered fervently. If the ants had been raging bulls, he would have saved her from them; but they were ants, and their ways were devious. He hesitated, slapping himself thoughtfully.