Another little prejudice toppled from its pedestal, another household tradition of Oliver's smashed into a thousand pieces at his feet! This rubbing and grinding process of man against man; this seeing with one's own eyes and not another's was fast rounding out and perfecting the impressionable clay of our young gentleman's mind. It was a lesson, too, the scribe is delighted to say, which our hero never forgot; nor did he ever forget the man who taught it. One of his greatest delights in after-years was to raise his hat to this incomparable embodiment of the dignity and courtliness of the old school. The old gentleman had long since forgotten the young fellow, but that made no difference to Oliver--he would cross the street any time to lift his hat to dear John Gilbert. The introduction of the other members of the club to the villain being over--they had stood the whole time, they were listening to the actor, each head uncovered--McFudd again marshalled his troop and proceeded up Broadway, where, at Oliver's request, they were halted at the pedestal of the big Bronze Horse and within sight of their own quarters. Here McFudd insisted that the club should sing "God Save the Queen" to the Father of his Country, where he sat astride of his horse, which was accordingly done, much to the delight of a couple of night-watchmen, who watched the entire performance and who, upon McFudd's subsequent inspection, proved to be fellow-countrymen of the distinguished Hibernian. Had the buoyant and irrepressible Irishman been content with this patriotic outburst as the final winding-up of the night's outing, and had he then and there betaken himself and his fellows off to bed, the calamity which followed, and which so nearly wrecked the Skylarks, might have been avoided. It is difficult at any time to account for the workings of Fate or to follow the course of its agents. The track of an earth-worm destroys a dam; the parting of a wire wrecks a bridge; the breaking of a root starts an avalanche; the flaw in an axle dooms a train; the sting of a microbe depopulates a city. But none of these unseen, mysterious agencies was at work--nothing so trivial wrecked the Skylarks. It was a German street-band! A band whose several members had watched McFudd and his party from across the street, and who had begun limbering their instruments before the sextet had ceased singing; regarding the situation, no doubt, as pregnant with tips. McFudd did not give the cornet time to draw his instrument from its woollen bag before he had him by the arm. "Don't put a mouthful of wind into that horn of yours until I spake to ye," he cried in vociferous tones. The leader stopped and looked at him in a dazed way.