“What does yez want?” growled he at length. “What the d—l does yez want?” looking as if he would say,
“Now my weary lips I close;
Leave me, leave me to repose.”
“Music! music!” said our host, laughing. “Any sort of music, any sort of noise,” and he left the piper and took his place amongst the dancers.
Tim mechanically fumbled at his pipes, while the gentlemen busied themselves in procuring partners. There was silence for some seconds. “Begin, piper,” called out our host.
“Out ov fashin,” muttered Tim in broken half-finished sentences; “but—I’ll—give—yez—one—as—good——;” and a long, a loud reverberating snore at the instant made good his promise of music almost as harmonious as the sounds elicited from his bagpipe!!
Imagine to yourselves, ye who can, the scene that followed. The salts-bottle and perfumed handkerchief of the exquisites were in instant requisition, as if they felt sensations of fainting! the nervous started as if a pistol went off at their heads, and those who bore the explosion with fortitude joined in a chorus of laughter, increased to pain when it was perceived that the Inimitable, noways disturbed or alarmed, prolonged his repose, and agreeably to the laws of music, and in excellent taste, bringing in his nasal performance as a grand finale to each resounding peal!
“Now,” observed the friend who had answered for me at a critical crisis, “has not Tim Callaghan made his own panegyric? Has not his merit spoken for itself? What a figure our inimitable piper would have cut, had we ushered him in with a flourish of trumpets!”
When the cachinnatory storm had subsided, and when all considered that their unrivalled musician had had enough of slumber, he was once more aroused, to receive his well-earned guerdon, when the following colloquy commenced:—
“Pray, piper, what is your name?” demanded the master of the house, with all the gravity of a magistrate on the bench, and drawing forth his tablets.