vigilant Committee to see him safely on his way.

In some respects SLUKER came back an altered man. The stamp of change
was on his noble face, indeed it had been stamped on itself, until it
looked like a wax doll under a hot stove. But he still retained his
warlike spirit.

There was not so much chance of indulging it now, however. The Fire
Company had disbanded, and nearly every one had grown rich enough to own
a shot-gun. There was only one chance left.

He joined the Presbyterian Choir.

Not that he had much of a voice, though he used to play 'Comin' thro'
the Rye' oh the fiddle sometimes, until he got it going _through him_ so
much he couldn't draw a note.

Nobody would have taken them if he had.

Well, SLUKER had a pretty warm time of it in the Choir, and enjoyed
himself very much, until they got a new Organist who pitched every thing
in 'high C,' which was this young man's strong lead.

As the Choir always sang in G, of coarse, there was a row the first
Sunday, and it was generally understood that SLUKER was going to fix
MIDDLERIB that night.

When the evening service commenced, and the Choir was about to begin,
the congregation were startled by an ominous click in the gallery, and
looking up, they beheld SLUKER covering the Organist's second shirt-stud
with his revolver.

"Give us G, Mr. MIDDLERIB, if you please!" he said blandly.

But the pirate on the high C's refused to Gee, and Whoa was the natural
result.

The confusion that followed was terrible: SLUKER fired at everybody.
MIDDLERIB hit him with the music stool. The soprano was thrown over the
railing, and somebody turned off the gas.

In the ensuing darkness every one skirmished for themselves. SLUKER took
off his boots and hunted for MIDDLERIB in his stocking feet.

Suddenly he heard a single note on the 'high C.' He groped his way to
the keyboard, but there was no one there.

The solution rushed upon him,--MIDDLERIB must be _in_ the organ.

He crept round to the handle and bore his weight on it.

It was too true; the unhappy wretch had cut a hole in the bellows and
crawled in. But for his ruling passion he would have escaped.

There were a few muffled groans as the handle slowly descended upon the
doomed man, and as the breath rushed out of his body into his favorite
pipe, the wild 'high C of agony that ran through the sacred edifice
told them that all was over.

Let us draw a vail over the horrid picture."

* *