who was constantly carolling or trilling with a voice of the most rasping kind, or playing upon a most atrocious accordeon, to the discomfiture and annoyance of the other guests.
“Can that man not be made to keep quiet?” asked my wife.
“Doubtless, my dear, if you would go and talk to him sweetly, he would cease his songs and lay aside his wind instrument,” I gallantly replied.
“Don’t tease me,” she said. “Here we both have got splitting headaches through that horrid noise.”
“I thought from your manner you seemed a little cracked, my love; what can I do?” I queried.
“You ought to know—you are a lawyer; can’t you make him stop?”
“Well, really I don’t know. I remember that in England a man had the constant ringing of a chime of bells in a neighboring chapel stopped on account of the annoyance and discomfort it caused him.”[396]
“I am sure that the noise of bells is as heavenly music compared to the infernal discords produced by that man,” remarked the other lady, who, like Talmage’s friend, Miss Stinger, was sharp as a hornet, prided herself on saying things that cut, could not bear the sight of a pair of pants, loathed a shaving apparatus, and thought Eve would have shown a better capacity for housekeeping if she had—the first time she used her broom—swept Adam out of Paradise.
“Yes, dear madam, the noise of belles is often most delightful; and the happiest day of my life was the one on which I was engaged in ringing a sweet village belle, who shall be nameless,” I replied, knowing that the lady hated everything like gallantry, and I politely waved my hand towards Mrs. L., who exclaimed:
“You stupid, you! Tell me directly what we can do!”