Muffles
had no Sunday license, of course, but a little thing like that never
disturbed Muffles or his friends--not with the Captain of the Precinct
as part owner.
My intimacy with Muffles dated from a visit I had made him a year
before, when I stopped in one of my sketching-tramps to get something
cooling. A young friend of mine--a musician--was with me. Muffles's
garden was filled with visitors: some celebration or holiday had called
the people out. Muffles, in expectation, had had the piano tuned and had
sent to town for an orchestra of three. The cornet and bass-viol had put
in an appearance, but the pianist had been lost in the shuffle.
"De bloke ain't showed up and we can't git nothin' out o' de fish-horn
and de scrape--see?" was the way Muffles put it.
My friend was a graduate of the Conservatoire, an ex-stroke, crew of
'91, owned a pair of shears which he used twice a year in the vaults of
a downtown bank, and breakfasted every day at twelve--but none of these
things had spoiled him.
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