like to hear a fiddle sing, but these noises they hammer out of
their wood and ivory anvils--don't talk to me, I know the difference
between a bullfrog and a woodthrush and--

Pop! went a small piece of artillery such as is made of a stick of elder
and carries a pellet of very moderate consistency. That Boy was in his
seat and looking demure enough, but there could be no question that he
was the artillery-man who had discharged the missile. The aim was not a
bad one, for it took the Master full in the forehead, and had the effect
of checking the flow of his eloquence. How the little monkey had learned
to time his interruptions I do not know, but I have observed more than
once before this, that the popgun would go off just at the moment when
some one of the company was getting too energetic or prolix. The Boy
isn't old enough to judge for himself when to intervene to change the
order of conversation; no, of course he isn't. Somebody must give him a
hint. Somebody.--Who is it? I suspect Dr. B. Franklin. He looks too
knowing. There is certainly a trick somewhere. Why, a day or two ago I
was myself discoursing, with considerable effect, as I thought, on some
of the new aspects of humanity, when I was struck full on the cheek by
one of these little pellets, and there was such a confounded laugh that I
had to wind up and leave off with a preposition instead of a good
mouthful of polysyllables. I have watched our young Doctor, however, and
have been entirely unable to detect any signs of communication between
him and this audacious child, who is like to become a power among us, for
that popgun is fatal to any talker who is hit by its pellet. I have
suspected a foot under the table as the prompter, but I have been unable
to detect the slightest movement or look as if he were making one, on the
part of Dr. Benjamin Franklin. I cannot help thinking of the flappers in
Swift's Laputa, only they gave one a hint when to speak and another a
hint to listen, whereas the popgun says unmistakably, "Shut up!"

--I should be sorry to lose my confidence in Dr. B. Franklin, who seems
very much devoted to his business, and whom I mean to consult about some
small symptoms I have had lately. Perhaps it is coming to a new
boarding-house. The young people who come into Paris from the provinces
are very apt--so I have been told by one that knows--to have an attack of
typhoid fever a few weeks or months after their arrival. I have not