had received a compliment, and still came the sounds:

_Tiddle-widdle-iddle, oom pom-pom,_
_Oom pom-pom, oom---- _

"Stop it!" cried the shaggy man, earnestly. "Stop that dreadful noise!"

The fat man looked at him sadly and began his reply. When he spoke the
music changed and the words seemed to accompany the notes. He said--or
rather sang:

_It isn't a noise that you hear,_
_But Music, harmonic and clear._
_My breath makes me play_
_Like an organ, all day--_
_That bass note is in my left ear._

"How funny!" exclaimed Dorothy; "he says his breath makes the music."

"That's all nonsense," declared the shaggy man; but now the music began
again, and they all listened carefully.

_My lungs are full of reeds like those_
_In organs, therefore I suppose,_
_If I breathe in or out my nose,_
_The reeds are bound to play._

_So, as I breathe to live, you know,_
_I squeeze out music as I go;_
_I'm very sorry this is so---- _
_Forgive my piping, pray!_

[Illustration]

"Poor man," said Polychrome; "he can't help it. What a great misfortune
it is!"

"Yes," replied the shaggy man; "we are only obliged to hear this music a
short time, until we leave him and go away; but the poor fellow must
listen to himself as long as he lives, and that is enough to drive him
crazy. Don't you think so?"

"Don't know," said Button-Bright. Toto said "Bow-wow!" and the others
laughed.

"Perhaps that's why he lives all alone," suggested Dorothy.

"Yes; if he had neighbors they might do him an injury," responded the
shaggy man.

All this while the little fat musicker was breathing the notes:

_Tiddle-tiddle-iddle, oom, pom-pom,_

and they had to speak loud in order to hear themselves. The shaggy man
said:

"Who are you, sir?"

The reply came in the shape of this sing-song:

_I'm Allegro da Capo, a very famous man;_
_Just find another, high or low, to match me if you can._
_Some people try, but can't, to play_
_And have to practice every day;_
_But I've been musical alway, since first my life began._

"Why, I b'lieve he's proud of it," exclaimed Dorothy, "and seems to me
I've heard worse music than he makes."

"Where?" asked Button-Bright.

"I've forgotten, just now. But Mr. Da Capo is certainly a strange
person--isn't he?--and p'r'aps he's the only one of his kind in all the
world."

This praise seemed to please