the little squeaky one.  Then those two hands of hers made a jump at the keys as if they were a couple of tigers coming down on a flock of black and white sheep, and the piano gave a great howl as if its tail had been trod on.  Dead stop,—­so still you could hear your hair growing.  Then another jump, and another howl, as if the piano had two tails and you had trod on both of ’em at once, and, then a grand clatter and scramble and string of jumps, up and down, back and forward, one hand over the other, like a stampede of rats and mice more than like anything I call music.  I like to hear a woman sing, and I like to hear a fiddle sing, but these noises they hammer out of their wood and ivory anvils—­don’t talk to me, I know the difference between a bullfrog and a woodthrush and—­

Pop! went a small piece of artillery such as is made of a stick of elder and carries a pellet of very moderate consistency.  That Boy was in his seat and looking demure enough, but there could be no question that he was the artillery-man who had discharged the missile.  The aim was not a bad one, for it took the Master full in the forehead, and had the effect of checking the flow of his eloquence.  How the little monkey had learned to time his interruptions I do not know, but I have observed more than once before this, that the popgun would go off just at the moment when some one of the company was getting too energetic or prolix.  The Boy isn’t old enough to judge for himself when to intervene to change the order of conversation; no, of course he isn’t.  Somebody must give him a hint.  Somebody.—­Who is it?  I suspect Dr. B. Franklin.  He looks too knowing.  There is certainly a trick somewhere.  Why, a day or two ago I was myself discoursing, with considerable effect, as I thought, on some of the new aspects of humanity, when I was struck full on the cheek by one of these little pellets, and there was such a confounded laugh that I had to wind up and leave off with a preposition instead of a good mouthful of polysyllables.  I have watched our young Doctor, however, and have been entirely unable to detect any signs of communication between him and this audacious child, who is like to become a power among us, for that popgun is fatal to any talker who is hit by its pellet.  I have suspected a foot under the table as the prompter, but I have been unable to detect the slightest movement or look as if he were making one, on the part of Dr. Benjamin Franklin.  I cannot help thinking of the flappers in Swift’s Laputa, only they gave one a hint when to speak and another a hint to listen, whereas the popgun says unmistakably, “Shut up!”