“The drone of Donald’s pipes streamed with bonny flags of red and blue, while he made his cheeks as red as crimson, and bobbed around as he blew. Meantime the banner of defiance hoisted on his antagonist’s spirit-stirring engine floated on the troubled air in the radiant yellow of the Celestial Empire. As etiquette demanded that each should be heard in turn, the Imperial piper, having the preference, as of divine right, put forth all his energy on the advent of his rival, as the cock crows a louder defiance should some neighbour chanticleer intrude on his hereditary domain. But John was now seventy, nor had his wind much improved by the quantity of monsoon which he had swallowed in the Indian seas. His breeze being blown, Donald, who knew the weak point in his rival’s lungs, now raised a blast so loud and dread that it reminded one of the roaring of the lion of Rabbi Johosuah Ben Hananiah, at the sound of whose voice all the people’s teeth dropped out of their heads. John turned yellow with despair, as the Imperial ribbons, and thus ended the first act. “It was not for us to decide between rival pibrochs or rival pipers, but by the aid of some judicious applause and more acceptable whisky a sort of amicable armistice was produced till the next act should begin. It was now necessary that they should play together a duet, composed of different pibrochs in different keys, in which it was the business of each to outscream his neighbour by the united force of lungs and elbows. The north side of the room was in possession of the Emperor’s piper, and he of our clan drew up his force on the south; each strutting and bellowing till, like rival bullfinches, they were ready to burst their lungs and bag, each playing his own tune in harmonious dissonance; and both as they crossed each other at every turn, looking the defiance they would have breathed had their wind not been otherwise employed. The chanters screamed, the drones grunted, and as the battle raged with increasing fury, Donald’s wind seemed ready to burst its cerements, while the steam of the whisky distilling through the bag dropped as from the nozzle of a worm-pipe. Poor John was now nearly blown, but as we were unwilling that he should puff out for our amusement the last of that breath which he had with so much difficulty brought all the way from Pekin, we determined that enough had been done for honour, and put an end to the concert according to the rules of bucolic contest, by allowing equal praise and equal prizes to each swain. That they had both played _fort bein_ could not be doubted, still less according to the French pun that they had played _bein fort_.”