third-rate German musician is), saying they were only bound to play just so long; so I gave them a good slanging in their own tongue (I know German enough to blow up a man, and a fine strong language it is for the purpose); and White swore it was too bad, and Edwards tried to make them a conciliatory speech--only he was too tipsy to talk straight; and Sumner offered them fifty dollars to go on playing. Thereupon, up and spake the big bass-viol,--'We ton't want your money; we want to be dreated like chentlemens;' and then Frank lost his temper. 'I'll treat you,' says he; and with that he delivered right and left into the bass-viol, and knocked him through his own instrument; and then some one knocked Sumner over the head with a trombone;--then we all set to, and gave the musicians their change (we owed them a little before, for it wasn't the first time they had been saucy to us,) and we thrashed them essentially, and comminuted a few of their instruments. And half-a-dozen of the Irish waiters came out, with their sleeves rolled up, to fight for the honor of the house, and protect Mr. Grabster's property--meaning the musicians, I suppose;--and Haralson of Alabama, one of your regular six-feet-two-in-his-stockings South Western men, who had come North to learn the polka, and become civilized--Haralson pulled out a Bowie and swore he would whistle them up if they didn't make themselves scarce. By Jove! you should have seen the Paddies scud! And I caught _The Sewer_ reporter (the Irish one) in the _mêlée_, and let him have a kick that landed him in the middle of the floor, telling him he might put that into his next letter, and afterwards go to a place worse even than _The Sewer_ office. Then, after all the enemy were fairly routed, we adjourned to my parlor. I had some good champagne of my own, and a _pâté_ or two, and some Firmezas, and we held a jolly revel till four o'clock, and then the ladies retired, and we quiet married men did the same, and the boys went to fight the tiger, and Edwards lost 1400 dollars, and some of them took to running foot-races for a bet on the post-road. Haralson outran all the rest--and his senses too--and was found next evening about five miles up the road with no coat or hat, and one stocking off and the other stocking on, like my son John in the nursery rhyme, and his watch and purse gone. And _The Sewer_ and _Inexpressible_ said that it was the most brilliant ball that had occurred within the memory of the oldest inhabitants. And that's a pretty fair synopsis of the whole proceedings."