To which our swaying Mayor said:—
"Anyway, a Zulu has a lot of fun out of it. If singing, playing and dancing could only crowd out sitting around and moping, folks would find that a Zulu can hand us a tip or two on happy living."
But all music is not of string form; so, in a big auditorium, our party found a full brass band of about fifty boys, with a man from Branton Hills' Municipal Band as instructor. Now as Gadsby was, as you boys say, "not at all bad" on a big bass horn in his youthful days, this band instructor, thinking of it, was asking him to "sit it" and play. So, as Lady Gadsby, two girls, and two sons-in-law sat smiling and giggling in a front row, and as fifty boys could hardly play, from laughing, that big horn got such a blasting that it was practically a horn solo! And Nancy, doubling up from giggling, said:—
"D-d-daddy! If-f-f-f B-b-b-barnum's circus hits town, you must join its cl-cl-clown band!"
But I had to rush this happy party out of that building, as an awful thing was occurring but a block from it; which told its own story by a lurid light, flashing through windows; clanging gongs, shrilling horns and running, shouting crowds; for an old, long-vacant factory building just across from City Hall, was blazing furiously. Rushing along Broadway was that "motor thing," with Clancy and Dowd clinging wildly on a running board. Pulling up at a hydrant, Clancy said to His Honor:—
"As I was a-hangin' onto this dom thing, a-thinkin' it was going to bang into a big jam at two crossroads, I says, By Gorra! that big pair of blacks wouldn't bang into nuthin'! But this currazy contraption! It ain't got no brain—no nuthin', no soul—nuthin' but halitosis!!"
As Gadsby took a long look at Clancy's "dom thing," a vision was wafting through his mind of a calm, sunny patch of land, way out in Branton Hills' suburbs, on which day by day, two big blacks and two big roans could—anyway, taking all things into account, a big conflagration, with its din, rush and panic, is no spot for such animals as "Big Four." As for Old Bill's squawk about animals "ruining our paving," Gadsby thought that was but small talk, for paving, anyway, can't last for long. But, that is a glorious spot, way out amongst our hills!
Gadsby took his party to a room in City Hall from which that burning factory was in plain sight; and as Nancy and Kathlyn stood watching that awful sight a big wall, crashing down, had a crowd rushing to that spot.
A man's form was brought out to a patrol wagon; and a boy, rushing past City Hall, sang out to Gadsby:—
"It's Old Man Donaldson!!"