ng up his hunched
shoulders and looking the picture of a long-legged heron standing in the
water, "Mr. Anderson, you and our young and happy friend, Mr. Wehle,
will accept our thanks. We thought that music was all you wanted to gin
a delightful--kinder--sorter--well, top-dressin', to this interestin'
occasion. Now they's nothin' sweeter'n a tin horn, 'thout 'tis a
melodious conch-shell utterin' its voice like a turkle-dove. Then we've
got the paytent double whirlymagig hoss-violeen, and the tin pannyforte,
and, better nor all, the grindin' skelletled cymbals. We've laid
ourselves out and done our purtiest--hain't we, feller-musicians?--to
prove that we was the best band on the Ohio River. An' all out of
affection and respect for this ere happy pair. And we're all happy to be
here. Hain't we?" (Here they all nodded assent, though they looked as
though they wished themselves far enough.) "Our enstruments is a leetle
out of toon, owin' to the dampness of the night air, and so I trust
you'll excuse us playin' a farewell piece."

Jim West was so anxious to get away that he took advantage of this turn
to say good-evening, and though the mischievous Julia insisted that he
should select his instrument, he had not the face to confess to the
skillet-lids, and got out of it by assuring her that he hadn't brought
nothing, "only come along to see the fun." And each member of the party
repeated the transparent lie, so that Julia found herself supplied with
more musical instruments than any young housekeeper need want, and
Andrew hung them, horns, pans, conch-shell, dumb-bull, horse-fiddle,
skillet-lids, and all, in his library, as trophies captured from
the enemy.

Much as I should like to tell you of the later events of the
Philosopher's life, and about Julia and August, and their oldest son,
whose name is Andrew, and all that, I do not know that I can do better
than to bow myself out with the abashed serenaders, letting this musical
epilogue harmoniously close the book; writing just here.

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's The End Of The World, by Edward Eggleston

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE END OF THE WORLD ***

***** This file should be named 14051.txt or 14051.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.net/1/4/0/5/14051/

Produced by Rick Niles, John Hagerson, Charlie Kirschner and the PG
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.