"you look like a Chinese Adam
surrounded by a Japanese creation."

"He, he, he, Sir, you have so pleasant a vein," said the little Don, in
a sharp shrill voice. "But it has been all done, Sir, by one man; all of
it collected by me, simple as I stand."

"Simple, indeed," quoth Tarleton; "and how gets on the fiddle?"

"Bravely, Sir, bravely; shall I play you a tune?"

"No, no, my good Don; another time."

"Nay, Sir, nay," cried the antiquarian, "suffer me to welcome your
arrival properly."

And, forthwith disappearing, he returned in an instant with a
marvellously ill-favoured old fiddle. Throwing a _penseroso_ air into
his thin cheeks, our Don then began a few preliminary thrummings, which
set my teeth on edge, and made Tarleton put both hands to his ears.
Three sober-looking citizens, who had just sat themselves down to pipes
and the journal, started to their feet like so many pieces of clockwork;
but no sooner had Don Saltero, with a _degage_ air of graceful
melancholy, actually launched into what he was pleased to term a tune,
than a universal irritation of nerves seized the whole company. At
the first overture, the three citizens swore and cursed, at the
second division of the tune, they seized their hats, at the third they
vanished. As for me, I found all my limbs twitching as if they were
dancing to St. Vitus's music; the very drawers disappeared; the
alligator itself twirled round, as if revivified by so harsh an
experiment on the nervous system; and I verily believe the whole museum,
bull, wings, Indian canoe, and Calmuc Tartar, would have been set into
motion by this new Orpheus, had not Tarleton, in a paroxysm of rage,
seized him by the tail of the coat, and whirled him round, fiddle and
all, with such velocity that the poor musician lost his equilibrium, and
falling against a row of Chinese monsters, brought the whole set to
the ground, where he lay covered by the wrecks that accompanied his
overthrow, screaming and struggling, and grasping his fiddle, which
every now and then, touched involuntarily by his fingers, uttered a
dismal squeak, as if sympathizing in the disaster it had caused, until
the drawer ran in, and, raising the unhappy antiquarian, placed him on a
great chair.

"O Lord!" groaned Don Saltero, "O Lord! my monsters--my monsters--the
pagoda--the mandarin, and the idol where are they?--broken--ruined--
annihilated!"

"No, Sir; all safe, Sir," said the drawer, a smart, small, smug, pert