"Won't those infernal bells stop ringing for a while and let a fellow go to sleep?" said Howard as he got out of bed. "Look at those creatures, will you?" pointing to the fat mosquitoes at the top of the mosquito-bar. "The vampires! How do you suppose they got in, anyway?" "It beats me," said the Duke. "It isn't the mosquitoes or the bells: that ball of fire that's shining through the window makes a perfect oven of the room." The merciless sun had risen over the low roofs of the walled city, and the heat was radiating from the white walls and the scorching streets. The Duke was sitting on the edge of the low army cot in his pajamas and his bedroom slippers, smoking a native cigarette. "It must be about ten o'clock," said Howard. "I wonder if the Chinaman left any breakfast for us." "Probably. A couple of cold fried eggs, or a clammy dish of oatmeal and condensed milk. Shall we get up and go somewhere?" "I can't find any clothes," said Howard; "this place is turning into a regular chaos, anyway." It was indeed a chaos,--lines of clothes where the mosquitoes swarmed, papers and books scattered about the floor, pajamas, duck suits, towels on every chair, and muddy white shoes strewn around. "Doesn't the _muchacho_ ever clean things up?" "That's nothing," said the Duke; "wait till the Chinaman runs off with all your washing. I can lend you a white suit; and, say,--tell the _muchacho_ to come in and _blanco_ a few shoes." As there are no apartment-houses in Manila, the young clerk on small salary will usually live in a furnished room in the walled city. For the first few months it is a rather dreary life. The cool veranda and the steamer chair, after the day's work, is a luxury denied the young Americans within the city walls. The list of amusements that Manila offers is an unattractive one. There is a baseball game between two companies of soldiers, or between the Government employees representing different departments. There is the cock-fight out at Santa Ana, Sunday mornings and _fiesta_ days; but this is mostly patronized by natives, and is not especially agreeable to Americans. The Country club--reached after a long drive out Malate way, past the Malate fort that bears the marks of Dewey's shells, past the old church once occupied by soldiers, through the rice-pads where the American troops first met the Insurrecto firing line--is little more than a mere gambling-house. It is now visited by those whose former resorts in the walled city have been broken up by the constabulary.