pose,
If I breathe in or out my nose,
The reeds are bound to play.

So as I breathe to live, you know,
I squeeze out music as I go;
I'm very sorry this is so--
Forgive my piping, pray!

"Poor man," said Polychrome; "he can't help it. What a great
misfortune it is!"

"Yes," replied the shaggy man; "we are only obliged to hear this music
a short time, until we leave him and go away; but the poor fellow must
listen to himself as long as he lives, and that is enough to drive him
crazy. Don't you think so?"

"Don't know," said Button-Bright. Toto said, "Bow-wow!" and the others
laughed.

"Perhaps that's why he lives all alone," suggested Dorothy.

"Yes; if he had neighbors, they might do him an injury," responded the
shaggy man.

All this while the little fat musicker was breathing the notes:

Tiddle-tiddle-iddle, oom, pom-pom,

and they had to speak loud in order to hear themselves. The shaggy man
said:

"Who are you, sir?"

The reply came in the shape of this sing-song:

I'm Allegro da Capo, a very famous man;
Just find another, high or low, to match me if you can.
Some people try, but can't, to play
And have to practice every day;
But I've been musical always, since first my life began.

"Why, I b'lieve he's proud of it," exclaimed Dorothy; "and seems to me
I've heard worse music than he makes."

"Where?" asked Button-Bright.

"I've forgotten, just now. But Mr. Da Capo is certainly a strange
person--isn't he?--and p'r'aps he's the only one of his kind in all the
world."

This praise seemed to please the little fat musicker, for he swelled
out his chest, looked important and sang as follows:

I wear no band around me,
And yet I am a band!
I do not strain to make my strains
But, on the other hand,
My toot is always destitute
Of flats or other errors;
To see sharp and be natural are
For me but minor terrors.

"I don't quite understand that," said Polychrome, with a puzzled look;
"but perhaps it's because I'm accustomed only to the music of the
spheres."

"What's that?" asked Button-Bright.

"Oh, Polly means the atmosphere and hemisphere, I s'pose," explained
Dorothy.

"Oh," said Button-Bright.

"Bow-wow!" said Toto.

But the musicker was still breathing his constant

Oom, pom-pom; Oom pom-pom--

and it seemed to jar on the shaggy man's nerves.

"Stop it, can't you?" he cried angrily; "or breat