“Ah,” added I, quoting an early reply to one of my interrogatories, “there are many things as clear to our vision as the sunshine at noon, and yet their causes are hid in impenetrable darkness.”
“Well, well!” added my friend, “I don’t wish to appear inquisitive, but if you should mix me up in your—your—”
“Don’t say book,” remarked I. “It sounds so gent-like.”
“Anything you please,” said Trimbush. “But as I was about saying,” continued he, “if you should come out so powerfully strong, perhaps you’d make room for a little slice of an attempt at a song upon our worthy master—God bless him!”
“Of your composing?” inquired I.
Trimbush coughed, licked his paws, examined the tip of his stern, as if a flea was taking a liberty in that quarter, but gave no answer.
I repeated the question.
“As you will have it,” he rejoined, pettishly, “then it is my composition.”
“I feel assured that you need not be ashamed of it,” returned I. “Pray let me hear the effusion.”
“You’ll not laugh?” said he, inquiringly.