"You know what a curiously upside-down people the Chinese are. Example, they begin dinner with desert and end with soup; they drink hot, acid beverages in summer instead of iced ones; they write from right to left, vertically, while we write from left to right, horizontally; they mourn in white instead of black, and they are awfully honest and pay their debts. "But there is one other point of difference still queerer: they wear pajamas all day, while we wear them only at night." Here I yawned. Always hate that heavy, historical, instructive stuff, you know. If you have to hear it, gives you headache, unless you can slip off to sleep first. So I reached the letter up to Jenkins. "Just run over the rest of it yourself, and see if he says anything about his present," I said, settling comfortably. Clever idea of mine, don't you think? And I was just dropping my head to have a snug little nap--just a little forty, you know--when, dash me, if I didn't have another idea! Awfully annoying, time like that. Mind is so devilish alert, dash it! Always doing things like that; can't seem to get over it, you know. And this ripping idea that bobbed up now and got me all roused up was nothing more or less than to untie the string myself and see what the thing was. See? "I believe, sir," said Jenkins, looking up, "the gentleman has sent you--h'm--has sent you--" "By Jove, a suit of pajamas!" I exclaimed, holding them up. It was neck and neck, but I beat Jenkins to it, after all! "Gentleman says, sir," continued Jenkins, studying the letter, "that his present of a pair of pajamas may seem surprising, but you won't know how surprising until you have worn them." "Jolly likely," I admitted, feeling the silk. By Jove, it was the finest, yet thinnest stuff I ever saw, soft as rose leaves and as filmy light as a spider's web. Not bad, that, for a comparison, eh? Caught the idea from a vase of full-blown roses that were beginning to shed their petals there on the table. And on one of the blossoms was a little brown spider. Catch the idea? Suggested spider's web, you know. "They're rather red, sir," Jenkins commented dubiously. Red? Well, I should say! My! How jolly red they were! We spread them under the light, and the red seemed to flow all over the table and fall from the edge. Why, they were as red as-- I tried to think of something they were as red as, but somehow I couldn't fetch the idea. I thought of red ink and blood and fireworks, but they didn't seem to be up to them at all. And a big, velvety petal that dropped from one of the crimson roses just seemed brown beside them. And yet, dash it, I knew they reminded me of something, you know; I knew they _must_. "They remind me--" I began, and had to pause--idea balked, you know. "They remind me of--of--Jenkins, what do they remind me of?" "Of _him_, sir," replied Jenkins promptly. "Eh?"