is time, a cook's cap resting on his ears, his hands
bearing a great dish athwart which lay a cold salmon that the baker
had cooked for him that morning. Close behind came Pestler with a tray
filled with boxes of candy, and next Sanderson with a flattish basket
piled high with carnations, each one tied as a boutonniere; and
Porterfield with a bunch of bananas; and so on and so on--each arrival
being received with fresh roars and shouts of welcoming approval. Last
of all came Kitty, her face one great, pervading, all-embracing laugh,
her own big coffee-pot filled to the brim and smoking hot on a waiter,
her boy Bobby following, loaded down with cups and saucers.

Supper over--and it was a mighty feast, with everybody waiting on
everybody else, Kitty busiest of all, filling each cup herself--Digwell
the undertaker, who had really been the life of the party, remarked in
a voice loud enough to be heard half-way across the room that it was a
pity there was no piano, as a party could not be a real party without
a dance. At this Kling, who was having a mug with Codman, rose from
his seat, stepped to the top of the stairs and, looking over the crowd,
called for four strong men, "right avay, k'vick!" Codman, Pestler, Mike,
and Digwell responded, and before anybody knew where they had gone,
or what it was all about, up came an old-fashioned spinet, which Kling
remembered had been hidden behind a Martha Washington bedstead on the
floor below.

"All together, men!" shouted Codman, and it was picked up bodily,
whirled into position, dusted off in a jiffy, and ready for use.

At this Pestler sprang to his feet, shouted he was coming back in a
minute, rushed to the stairway, went down three steps at a time, bolted
through the front door, across the street, up into his bedroom, and back
again, all in one breath, waving his violin triumphantly over his head
as he entered.

And then it was that the real fun began. And then it was that virtue had
its own reward, for not a living soul in the room could play a note on
the spinet except the tallest and spookiest and, to all appearances, the
stupidest of the two young men, whom the Heffern girl had brought and
who turned out to have once been the star pianist in some dance-hall
on the Bowery. And the scribe remarks, parenthetically and in all
seriousness, that the way that lank, pin-headed young man revived the
soul of that old, worn-out harpischord, digging into its ribs, kicking
at its