SLAVIN CONTRA WAGNER.

“Ol’ man Donahue bought Molly a pianny las’ week,” Mr. Dooley said in the course of his conversation with Mr. McKenna.  “She’d been takin’ lessons fr’m a Dutchman down th’ sthreet, an’ they say she can play as aisy with her hands crossed as she can with wan finger.  She’s been whalin’ away iver since, an’ Donahue is dhrinkin’ again.

“Ye see th’ other night some iv th’ la-ads wint over f’r to see whether they cud smash his table in a frindly game iv forty-fives.  I don’t know what possessed Donahue.  He niver asked his frinds into the parlor befure.  They used to set in th’ dining-room; an’, whin Mrs. Donahue coughed at iliven o’clock, they’d toddle out th’ side dure with their hats in their hands.  But this here night, whether ’twas that Donahue had taken on a dhrink or two too much or not, he asked thim all in th’ front room, where Mrs. Donahue was settin’ with Molly.  ‘I’ve brought me frinds,’ he says, ’f’r to hear Molly take a fall out iv th’ music-box,’ he says.  ‘Let me have ye’er hat, Mike,’ he says.  ‘Ye’ll not feel it whin ye get out,’ he says.

“At anny other time Mrs. Donahue ‘d give him th’ marble heart.  But they wasn’t a man in th’ party that had a pianny to his name, an’ she knew they’d be throuble whin they wint home an’ tould about it. ’’Tis a mel-odjious insthrument,’ says she.  ‘I cud sit here be the hour an’ listen to Bootoven and Choochooski,’ she says.

“‘What did thim write?’ says Cassidy.  ‘Chunes,’ says Donahue, ’chunes:  Molly,’ he says, ’fetch ‘er th’ wallop to make th’ gintlemen feel good,’ he says.  ’What ‘ll it be, la-ads?’ ‘D’ye know “Down be th’ Tan-yard Side"?’ says Slavin.  ‘No,’ says Molly.  ‘It goes like this,’ says Slavin.  ‘A-ah, din yadden, yooden a-yadden, arrah yadden ay-a.’  ‘I dinnaw it,’ says th’ girl. ‘’Tis a low chune, annyhow,’ says Mrs. Donahue.  ‘Misther Slavin ividintly thinks he’s at a polis picnic,’ she says.  ‘I’ll have no come-all-ye’s in this house,’ she says.  ’Molly, give us a few ba-ars fr’m Wagner.’  ‘What Wagner’s that?’ says Flannagan.  ‘No wan ye know,’ says Donahue; ‘he’s a German musician.’  ‘Thim Germans is hot people f’r music,’ says Cassidy.  ’I knowed wan that cud play th’ “Wacht am Rhine” on a pair iv cymbals,’ he says, ‘Whisht!’ says Donahue.  ‘Give th’ girl a chanst.’

“Slavin tol’ me about it.  He says he niver heerd th’ like in his born days.  He says she fetched th’ pianny two or three wallops that made Cassidy jump out iv his chair, an’ Cassidy has charge iv th’ steam whistle at th’ quarry at that.  She wint at it as though she had a gredge at it.  First ‘twas wan hand an’ thin th’ other, thin both hands, knuckles down; an’ it looked, says Slavin, as if she was goin’ to leap into th’ middle iv it with both feet, whin Donahue jumps up.  ‘Hol’ on!’ he says.  ‘That’s not a rented pianny, ye daft girl,’ he says.  ‘Why, pap-pah,’ says Molly, ‘what d’ye mean?’ she