“I’ve called it worse than that,” sighed Monty.
“It’s just one little octave higher than the ordinary or garden flute and consequently it is just that much more excruciating to listen to. Although history does not reveal the origin of the piccolo, it is generally supposed to have originated with the Spanish Inquisition. If you survived being boiled in oil and drawn-and-quartered and a few other exercises you were serenaded by the Piccolo Quartette and always died in frightful agony within four minutes.”
“You seem to know a lot about it,” said Jimmy suspiciously. “You don’t happen to have the piccolo habit, I trust?”
“It’s all very well for you chaps to joke,” mourned Monty, “but if you had to live with one of the things you wouldn’t think it so funny.”
“When did this piccolo appear on the scene?” asked Jimmy.
“Today. He just got it to worry me, I guess. He can’t play it, but he’s going to learn, he says.” Monty scowled around at the amused faces. “If that Indian is found cold and lifeless in his bed some morning you fellows will know the reason. Why, say, the thing sounds—it sounds like a piece of Swiss cheese singing to its mate!”
Unfeeling howls of laughter greeted the simile, and Monty had to smile a bit himself. “Laugh, you bunch of horned toads,” he muttered.
“Why don’t you pinch it?” asked Dud. “Throw it out of the window or drop it in the river.”
“I can’t get it without fighting him for it. He keeps it in his pocket when he isn’t playing it and I suppose he will put it under his pillow at night. The only hope for me is that the other fellows will go crazy and kill him. I shall insist on having the door open when he plays.”