“The flat bug is more ravenous, though even he will allow you time to go to sleep before he begins with you; or at least till he thinks you ought to be asleep. When they find all quiet, not even a light in the room will prevent their biting; but they are seldom or never found under the bedclothes. They like a clear ground to get off, and generally bite round the edges of the nightcap or the nightdress. When they are found _in_ the bed, it’s because the parties have been tossing about, and have curled the sheets round the bugs. “The finest and fattest bugs I ever saw were those I found in a black man’s bed. He was the favorite servant of an Indian general. He didn’t want his bed done by me; he didn’t want it touched. His bed was full of ’em, no beehive was ever fuller. The walls and all were the same, there wasn’t a patch that was not crammed with them. He must have taken them all over the house wherever he went. “I’ve known persons to be laid up for months through bug-bites. There was a very handsome fair young lady I knew once, and she was much bitten about the arms, and neck, and face, so that her eyes were so swelled up she couldn’t see. The spots rose up like blisters, the same as if stung with a nettle, only on a very large scale. The bites were very much inflamed, and after a time they had the appearance of boils. “Some people fancy, and it is historically recorded, that the bug smells because it has no vent; but this is fabulous, for they _have_ a vent. It is not the human blood neither that makes them smell, because a young bug who has never touched a drop will smell. They breathe, I believe, through their sides; but I can’t answer for that, though it’s not through the head. They haven’t got a mouth, but they insert into the skin the point of a tube, which is quite as fine as a hair, through which they draw up the blood. I have many a time put a bug on the back of my hand, to see how they bite; though I never felt the bite but once, and then I suppose the bug had pitched upon a very tender part, for it was a sharp prick, something like that of a leech-bite. “I once had a case of lice-killing, for my process will answer as well for them as for bugs, though it’s a thing I never should follow by choice. Lice seem to harbor pretty much the same as bugs do. I find them in the furniture. It was a nurse that brought them into the house, though she was as nice and clean a looking woman as ever I saw. I should almost imagine the lice must have been in her, for they say there is a disease of that kind; and if the tics breed in sheep, why should not lice breed in us? for we’re but live matter, too. I didn’t like myself at all for two or three days after that lice-killing job, I can assure you; it’s the only case of the kind I ever had, and I can promise you it shall be the last.