ws that the Muse is a wayward,
freakish gipsy; a straggler in attics; a vagrant of the streets;
fortunately for him she is not at all the fine lady she has been
depicted! Doubtless she has her own reasons for her vagaries; perhaps
because it is so easy to soar from the hovel to fairy-land, but to
soar from a palace--that is obviously impossible; it is a height in
itself! So this itinerant maiden ever yawns amid scenes of splendor,
and, from time immemorial, has sighed for lofts, garrets, and such
humble places as Straws' earthly abode.

At the present time, however, Straws was alone. This eccentric but
lovely young lady had not deigned to visit him that day. Once, indeed,
she had just looked in, but whisked back again into the hall, slamming
the door after her, and the pen, momentarily grasped, had fallen from
Straws' hand. Instead of reaching for the ink-bottle he reached in the
cupboard for the other bottle. Again she came near entering through
the window--having many unconventional ways of coming into a
room!--but after looking in for a moment, changed her mind after her
fashion and floated away into thin space like the giddy, volatile
mistress that she was. After that she appeared no more--probably
making a friendly call on some one else!--and Straws resigned himself
to her heartless perfidy, having become accustomed to her frivolous,
fantastic moods.

Indeed, what else could he have done; what can any man do when his
lady-love deserts him, save to make the best of it? But he found his
consolation in a pipe; not a pipe of tobacco, nor yet a pipe of old
madeira, which, figuratively, most disappointed lovers seek; but a
pipe of melody, a pipe of flowing tunes and stirring marches; a pipe
of three holes, vulgarly termed by those who know not its high classic
origin from the Grecian reeds and its relation to the Pandian pipes, a
tin whistle! Thus was Straws classic in his taste, affecting the
instrument wherein Acis sighed his soul and breath away for fair
Galatea!

It had been a lazy, purposeless day. He had awakened at noon; had
coffee and rolls in bed; had dressed, got up, looked out, lain down
again, read, and vainly essayed original composition. Now, lying on
his back, with the Complete and Classic Preceptor before him, he
soothed himself with such music "as washes the every-day dust from the
soul." For a pipe of three holes, his instrument had a remarkable
compass; melody followed melody--"The Harp that Once t