at if I'd been born before she married, I'd have been a
poet, which I'm sorry to say, don't think it, for I ain't. I'm glad to
see you, Mr. Wagstaff, and as you say _you're_ jolly, and propose that
we shall _all_ be jolly, perhaps you'll favor me by coming out strong on
the second and fourth lines of this chorus.

"I'll do my little utmost," said Wagstaff.

[Illustration]

And he _did_ do his little utmost with a will, and their united voices
croaked up again the first man with the steeple-crowned hat, who hadn't
got his eyes fairly opened before _he_ joined in the chorus too, and he
gave his particular attention to it, and put in so many unexpected
cadenzas and quavers which the composer never intended, and shakes that
nobody else _could_ put in, and trills that his companions couldn't keep
up with, that he fairly astonished his hearers. And he didn't stop when
they did, but kept singing "tooral li tooral," with unprecedented
variations, and wouldn't hold up for Dennis to sing the verses, and
wouldn't wait for Wagstaff to take breath; but kept right on, now
putting a long shake on "tooral," now an unheard of trill on "looral,"
now coming out with redoubled force on the final "la," and then starting
off again, as if his voice had run away with him and he didn't want to
stop it, but was going to sing a perpetual chorus of unceasing "toorals"
and never ending "loorals."

For fifteen minutes his harmony was allowed uninterrupted progress, but
at length Wagstaff, putting his hand over his mouth, thereby smothering,
in its infancy, a strain of extraordinary power, addressed him thus:

"I don't want to interfere with any of your little arrangements,
stranger, but, if you don't stop that noise, I'll knock your head off.
What do you mean by intruding your music upon other people's music, and
thus mixing the breed? Don't you try to swallow my fist, you can't
digest it."

The latter part of this address was called forth by the frantic efforts
of the unknown amateur to get his mouth away from behind Wagstaff's
hand, which he at length accomplished, and when he had recovered his
breath he made an effort to speak. The musical fiend, however, had got
too strong possession of him to give up on so short a notice, and he was
unable to speak more than ten words without introducing another touch of
the magical chorus. The address with which he first favored his
companions ran something after the following fashion and sounded as if