by one; I saw the stars rise. The great organ of
eternity began to play from the world's end to the world's end; and
the angels went to prayers.... Then the music changed to water, full
of feeling that couldn't be thought, and began to drop--drip, drop,
drip, drop--clear and sweet, like tears of joy fallin' into a lake of
glory. It was as sweet as a sweetheart sweetn'd with white sugar,
mixed with powdered silver and seed diamonds. It was too sweet. I
tell you, the audience cheered. Rubin, he kinder bowed, like he
wanted to say, 'Much obleeged, but I'd rather you wouldn't interrupt
me.'

"He stopped a minute or two to fetch breath. Then he got mad. He runs
his fingers through his hair, he shoved up his sleeve, he opened his
coat-tails a leetle further, he drug up his stool, he leaned over,
and, sir, he just went for that old pianner. He slapt her face, he
boxed her jaws, he pulled her nose, he pinched her ears, and he
scratched her cheeks till she fairly yelled. She bellowed like a
bull, she bleated like a calf, she howled like a hound, she squealed
like a pig, she shrieked like a rat, and _then_ he wouldn't let her
go. He ran a quarter stretch down the low grounds of the bass, till
he got clean into the bowels of the earth, and you heard thunder
galloping after thunder, thro' the hollows and caves of perdition;
and then he fox-chased his right hand with his left till he got away
out of the treble into the clouds, whar the notes was finer than the
pints of cambric needles, and you couldn't hear nothin' but the
shadders of 'em. And _then_ he wouldn't let the old pianner go. He
for'ard two'd, he cross't over first gentleman, he cross't over first
lady, he balanced two pards, he chassede right and left, back to
your places, he all hands'd aroun', ladies to the right, promenade
all, in and out, here and there, back and forth, up and down,
perpetual motion, doubled, twisted and turned and tacked and tangled
into forty-'leven thousand double bow knots.

"By jinks! It _was_ a mixtery. And then he wouldn't let the old
pianner go. He fecht up his right wing, he fecht up his left wing, he
fecht up his centre, he fecht up his reserves. He fired by file, he
fired by platoons, by company, by regiments, by brigades. He opened
his cannon, siege guns down thar, Napoleons here, twelve-pounders
yonder, big guns, little guns, middle-size guns, round shot, shells,
shrapnels, grape, canister, mortars, mines and magazines, every
livin' b