s the affair is ripe for a fight you can spiel," and the old
man took the gun apart and prepared to clean it.

"Atten-shun!" shouted the red-headed boy to his army, and each soldier
jumped up off the carpet and stood erect as possible. "I will now
disband you, and deliver my farewell address." Then he whispered to
Uncle Ike, and the old man handed him a half dollar, when the captain
gave the money to a boy who seemed to be second in command, and added,
"Go and buy you some ice-cream soda, and be prepared to respond to the
call to arms at a minute's notice. If France does not pardon Dreyfus,
and I can get a lot of Jew boys to join us, we won't do a thing to
France. Break ranks! Git!" and the boys went outdoors and made a rush
for a soda fountain.

"Now, Uncle Ike," said the boy, as he watched his army going clown the
street, "I have got a favor to ask of you. I want you to give me music
lessons."

"Well, I'll be bunkoed," said Uncle Ike, as he began to pull the
sweater off over his head. "I can't sing anything but 'Marching Through
Georgia.' What you want music lessons for?"

"Well, sir, I'll tell you, if you won't laugh at me," said the boy,
blushing. "You see, my girl has got back from the seashore, where she
has been taking salt-water baths. She was too fresh, but she is salty
enough now, and her face and arms are tanned just like these Russia
leather moccasins. You couldn't tell her from an Indian, only she
doesn't smell like buckskin. She has been taking lessons all summer at
a conservatory of music, and she can sing away up so high that when she
strikes a high note and gargles on it, it makes your hair raise right
up, and bristle, it is so full of electricity. She has got a tenor voice
that----"

"Hold on, hold on, you have got all mixed up," said the old man. "She
does not gargle. That is called warbling, or trilling, or trolling, or
something. And no girl has a tenor voice. She must be a soprano."

"Well, that's what I want to take music lessons for, so I can talk with
her intelligently about her music. Why, last night we were at a party,
and I turned the music while she played and sang, and I got the wrong
page, and got her all tangled up, and when she got through, and the
people were telling her how beautiful she sang, I told her she had the
most beautiful bass voice I ever saw, and she was so mad she wouldn't
speak to me, so I want you to teach me which is tenor, and which is
baritone, and which is that