We were formed of the dust of the earth—­there was no denying the fact, and we speedily withdrew; but before our dinner toilets were completed, such a collection of appetizers was sent in to us as must distinguish forever the charming hostess who concocted them.  I need not recall the dinner.  Have you ever observed that there is no real pleasure in reviving the memory of something good to eat?  Suffice it to state that the dinner was such a one as was most likely to be laid for us under the special supervision of three blooming maidens, who had come hither four and twenty hours in advance of us for this special purpose.  That night we played for moderate stakes until the hours were too small to be mentioned.  I forget who won; but it was probably the girls, who were as clever at cards as they were at everything else.  We ultimately retired, for the angel of sleep visits even a Californian bungalow, though his hours are a trifle irregular.  Our rooms, two large chambers, with folding doors thrown back, making the two as one, contained four double beds; in one of the rooms was a small altar, upon which stood a statue of the Madonna, veiled in ample folds of lace and crowned with a coronet of natural flowers; vases of flowers were at her feet, and lighted tapers flickered on either hand.  The apartment occupied by the young ladies was at the other corner of the bungalow; the servants, a good old couple, retainers in Alf’s family, slept in a cottage adjoining.  We retired manfully; we had smoked our last smoke, and were not a little fatigued; hence this readiness on our part to lay down the burdens and cares of the day.  When the lights were extinguished the moon, streaming in at the seaward windows, flooded the long rooms.  It was a glorious night; no sound disturbed its exquisite serenity save the subdued murmur of the waves, softened by an intervening hillock on which the cypress trees stood like black and solemn sentinels of the night.

[Illustration:  “The Huge Court of that Luxurious Caravansary.”]

I think I must have dozed, for it first seemed like a dream—­the crouching figures that stole in Indian file along the carpet from bed to bed; but soon enough I wakened to a reality, for the Phillistines were upon us, and the pillows fell like aerolites out of space.  The air was dense with flying bed-clothes; the assailants, Bartholomew and Alf, his right-hand man, fell upon us with school-boy fury; they made mad leaps, and landed upon our stomachs.  We grappled in deadly combat; not an article of furniture was left unturned; not one mattress remained upon another.  We made night hideous for some moments.  We roused the ladies from their virgin sleep, but paid little heed to their piteous pleadings.  The treaty of peace, which followed none too soon—­the pillow-cases were like fringes and the sheets were linen shreds—­culminated in a round of night-caps which for potency and flavor have, perhaps, never been equalled in the history of the vine.