“There are some ignoramuses don’t know nothin’,” exclaimed the Teacher. It was dark, but by the light of the lantern that hung in the window the men could see that he was gazing meaningly at his adversary. “But I know some that knows less than nothin’. The best horn-blower they is! Why, where’s your Rubensteins, your Paddyrewskies, your Pattis?” He stopped, for he saw that the mention of these names had had the desired effect on his audience, as there was a wise wagging of heads. But the Loafer was irrepressible. “Why,” he retorted, “Patti ain’t a horn-player. He’s a singer. I was readin’ a piece in the paper ’bout him jest last week. An’ ez fer ole Rube Stein, he never played nawthin’ but checkers.” “Well, can’t a man both sing an’ play the horn?” the Teacher snapped. “Perfessor, I agree with ye, I agree with ye entirely.” The Tinsmith had been silent hitherto, on the end of the bench. Now he leaned into view, resting an elbow on his knee and supporting his head with his hand. “Jim Clock don’t know no more ’bout blowin’ a bass-horn then my ole friend, Borax Bumbletree. Borax he knowd jest that leetle he was fired outen the Kishikoquillas In’epen’en’ Ban’. He come of a musical fam’ly, too. His mother an’ pap use to play the prettiest kind o’ duets on the melodium an’ ’cordine. His sister Amandy Lucy an’ his brother Hiram could sing like nightingales an’ b’longed to the choir at Happy Grove Church. It seems like Borax was left out in the distributin’ o’ music in that fam’ly, an’ consequent it went hard with him. ’Henever strangers was at the house it was allus, ‘Mr. Bumbletree, do play the melodium,’ or, ‘Now, Amanda Lucy, sing one o’ your beautiful pieces,’ an’ all that. Poor Borax, he jest set an’ moped. “Final he ’lowed he’d give the fam’ly a s’prise an’ learn the bass-horn, cal’latin’ to make up be hard hustlin’ what he’d missed be natur’--the knowledge of the dif’rence ’tween a sharp an’ a flat, a note an’ a bar, a treble an’ a soprany, an’ all them things. He begin be j’inin’ the In’pen’en’ Ban’. Fer six weeks he practised hard, an’ at last he did git to playin’ a couple o’ pieces. But the other fellys in the ban’ was continual’ complainin’ that Borax didn’t keep no kind o’ time; an’ not only that, but he drownded ’em all out, fer he could make a heap o’ noise. They sayd they wouldn’t play with him no more tell he learned to blow time. Borax was clean discouraged, but he didn’t give up. He practised six weeks more an’ tried it with the ban’ boys agin. They sayd now that he didn’t know pitch an’ ruined their pieces a-bellerin’ way down in _A_ ’hen they was blowin’ up in high _C_. He was pretty well cut up, but ’lowed he’d quit.