and stifling as this in New York, and as for peace and quiet,--why,
those rotten birds in the trees around the house make more noise
than the elevated trains at the rush hour, and the rotten roosters
begin crowing just about the time I'm going to sleep, and the
dogs bark, and the cows,--the cows do whatever cows do to make a
noise,--and then the crows begin to yawp. And all night long the
katydids keep up their beastly racket, and the frogs in the pond
back of the barns,--my God, man, the city is as silent as the grave
compared to what you get in the country."

"I manage to sleep through it all," said the old man drily. "The
frogs and katydids don't keep me awake."

"Yes, and that reminds me of another noise that makes the night
hideous. It's the way you people sleep. At nine o'clock sharp,
every night, the whole house begins to snore, and--Say, I've seen
service in France, I've slept in barracks with scores of tired
soldiers, I've walked through camps where thousands of able-bodied
men were snoring their heads off,--but never have I heard anything
so terrifying as the racket that lasts from nine to five in the
land of my forefathers. Gad, it sometimes seems to me you're all
trying to make my forefathers turn over in their graves up there
on the hill."

"You're kind of peevish today, ain't you?" inquired the other,
grinning. "You'll get used to the way we snore before long, and
you'll kind of enjoy it. I'd be scared to death if I got awake in
the night and didn't hear everybody in the house snoring. It's kind
of restful to know that everybody's asleep,--and not dead. If they
wasn't snoring, I'd certainly think they was dead."