"Put your great grandmother's grizzly gray greenish cat into the middle of next month!" I says. "Tech me if you dare? I paid my money and you just come a-nigh me."

With that some several policeman run up, and I had to simmer down. But I would a fit any fool that laid hands on me, for I was bound to hear Ruby out or die.

He had changed his tune again. He hop-light ladies and tip-toed fine from end to end of the keyboard. He played soft, and low and solemn. I heard the church bells over the hills. The candles of heaven was lit, one by one; I saw the stars rise. The great organ of eternity began to play from the world's end to the world's end and all the angels went to prayers. Then the music changed to water, full of feeling that couldn't be thought, and began to dropdrip, drop-drip, drop, clear and sweet, like tears of joy falling into a lake of glory. It was sweeter than that. It was as sweet as a sweet-heart sweetened with white sugar mixt with powdered silver and seed diamonds. It was too sweet. I tell you the audience cheered. Rubin, he kinder bowed, like he wanted to say, "Much obleeged, but I'd rather you wouldn't interrup' me."

He stopt a minute or two to ketch breath. Then he got mad. He run his fingers through his hair, he shoved up his sleeve, he opened his coat tails a leetle further, he drug up his stool, he leaned over, and, sir, he just went for that old pianner. He slapt her face, he boxed her jaws, he pulled her nose, he pinched her ears, and he schrached her cheeks until she fairly yelled. He run a quarter stretch down the low grounds of the base, till he got clean in the bowls of

the earth, and you heard thunder galloping after thunder, through the hollows and caves of perdition; and then he fox-chased his right hand with his left till he got away out of the treble into the clouds, whar the the notes was finer than the pints of cambric needles, and you couldn't hear nothin' but the shadders of 'em. And then he wouldn't let the old pianner go. He far'ard two'd, he crossed over first gentleman, he chassade right and left, back to your places, he all hands'd aroun', ladies to the right, promenade all, in and out, here and there, back and forth, up and down, perpetual motion, double twisted and turned and tacked and tangled into forty-eleven thousand double bow knots.

By jinks! it was a mixtery. And then he wouldn't let the old pianner go. He fecht up his right wing, he fecht up his left wing, he fecht up his centre, he fecht up his reserves. He fired by file, he fired by platoons, by company, by regiments, and by brigades. He opened his cannon-siege guns down thar, Napoleons here, twelve pounders yonder-big guns, little guns, middle-sized guns, round shot, shells, shrapnels, grape, canister, mortar, mines and magazines, every livin' battery and bomb a-goin' at the time. The house trembled, the lights danced, the walls shuk, the floor come up, the ceilin' come down, the sky split, the ground rokt,-heavens and earth, creation, sweetpotatoes, Moses, ninepences, glory, ten-penny nails, Sampson in a 'simmon tree, Tump, Tompson in a tumbler-cart, roodle-oodle-oodle-ruddle-uddle-uddleuddle- raddle-addle-addle-addle- riddle-iddle-iddleiddle-reedle-eedle-eedle-eedle-p-r-r-r-rlank! Bang! !! lang! per-lang! p-r-r-r-r-r!! Bang!!!

With that bang! he lifted himself bodily into the

a'r and he came down with his knees, his ten fingers, his ten toes, his elbows, and his nose, striking every single solitary key on the pianner at the same time. The thing busted and went off into seventeen hundred and fifty-seven thousand five hundred and forty-two heme-demi-semi quivers, and I know'd no more'.

When I come to, I were under ground about twenty foot, in a place they call Oyster Bay, treatin' a Yankee that I never laid eyes on before, and never expect to agin. Day was breakin' by the time I got to the St. Nicholas Hotel, and I pledge you my word, I did not know my name. The man asked me the number of my room, and I told him, "Hot music on the half-shell for two."

THE BOBOLINK.

THE ALDINE.

Once, on a golden afternoon,

With radiant faces and hearts in tune,
Two fond lovers in dreaming mood,

Threaded a rural solitude.

Wholly happy, they only knew

That the earth was bright and the sky was blue,
That light and beauty and joy and song
Charmed the way as they passed along;
The air was fragrant with woodland scents;
The squirrel frisked on the roadside fence;

And hovering near them, "Chee, chee, chink ?”
Queried the curious bobolink;

Pausing and peering with sidelong head,

As saucily questioning all they said;

While the ox-eye danced on its slender stem,

And all glad nature rejoiced with them.

Over the odorous fields were strewn
Wilting winrows of grass new mown,

And rosy billows of clover bloom

Surged in the sunshine and breathed perfume.
Swinging low on a slender limb,

The sparrow warbled his wedding hymn,
And balancing on a blackberry briar,

The bobolink sung with his heart on fire—
"Bobo-link! Bobo-link! Splink! Splank! Splink!
Chink! If you wish to kiss her, do!
Do it! do it! You coward, you!

Kiss her! kiss her! Who will see?
Only we three! we three! we three!
Ch-wee! ch-wee! ch-wee!"

Past tender garlands of drooping vines,
Through dim vistas of sweet-breathed pines,
Past wide meadow fields, lately mowed,
Wandered the indolent country road.
The lovers followed it, listening still,
And loitering slowly, as lovers will,

And entered a gray-roofed bridge that lay
Dusk and cool in their pleasant way.
Under its arch a smooth, brown stream,
Silently glided with glint and gleam,

Shaded by graceful elms, which spread Their verdurous canopy overheadFluttering lightly from brink to brink, Followed the garrulous bobolink, Rallying loudly with mirthful din, The pair who lingered unseen within. "Bob-ol-link! Bob-ol-link! Splink, Splank, Splink! Kiss her! kiss her! chee! chee! chee!

I'm not looking! I won't see!

Do it! do it! ch-wee, ch-wee, ch-wee!"

The stream so narrow, the boughs so wide,
They met and mingled across the tide.
Alders loved it, and seemed to keep
Patient watch as it lay asleep,
Mirroring clearly the trees and sky,
And the flitting form of the dragon fly,
Save where the swift-winged swallow played
In and out in the sun and shade,

And darting and circling in merry chase,
Dipped and dimpled its clear, dark face.

And when from the friendly bridge at last
Into the road beyond they passed,

Again beside them the tempter went,
Keeping the thread of his argument—
"Kiss her! kiss her! chink-a-chee-chee!
I'll not mention it! Don't mind me!
I'll be sentinel-I can see

All around from this tall birch-tree !"

But ah! they noted-nor deemed it strange-
In his rollicking chorus a trifling change—
"Do it! do it!"-with might and main
Warbled the tell-tale-" Do it again!"

WHERE'S ANNETTE?

Stop! stranger, may I speak with you? ah! yes, you needn't fear,

Till I whisper through the grating. I wouldn't have

them hear.

These jailers, if a body but chance to speak her name, They roll their eyes so savage, as if they meant to

tame