“Vas is dese tings?” exclaimed the man of music, springing to his feet. “Dere is somepody in de biano!” “Of course there is,” replied a voice from the heart of the mysterious instrument, while the amazed doctor and his guests came crowding up with one accord. “Doctor,” asked Professor Sturm, “dit you hear dat biano? I shall blay him some more. You see.” The professor was a man of pluck, but no sooner did his fingers again begin to wander over the chords than a tumult began behind the rosewood in front of him. Now it was one cat, then three or four. Then a distressed dog. And then a human voice appealed to the professor. “Please, don’t. You hurt us dreadfully.” “De defil’s in de biano!” exclaimed the professor. “No,” replied the voice, “not the devil. Only a lot of notes broke loose. If you’d only tie us up again.” “Die ’em up!” said the professor. “Doctor, dit you hear ’em?” “Yes, I heard them,” said the doctor. “Did you have any loose notes with you when you came?” “Loose note, Doctor! Vat is de loose note?” cried Professor Sturm, with a fast-reddening face. “In your pocket. Here we are,” replied a curious little voice from the professor’s own loose sack-coat. “We love you very much.” “You lofe me! Who are you?” “Oh! let us out, please. It’s dark in here. No air. If you don’t, I’ll tell them all what I’ve found.” The poor professor was evidently becoming sadly perplexed when kind-hearted Mrs. Manning decided that the boys had pushed their fun quite far enough. “Not any more, Barnaby,” she said, pleasantly. “Professor, you mustn’t be angry with the boys. But don’t you think he’s a very good ventriloquist for one so young?” “Oh! dat’s it,” exclaimed the professor, glad enough of an escape from his difficulties. “Den I serve him right if I make him sit down at de biano. Maybe he make some cat and dog music, eh?” The burly professor suited the action to the word, and almost before Bar knew it, he found himself seated at the piano. He would never have ventured there of his own accord, but it occurred to him that the very least he could do was to amuse his new friends by any little accomplishments he might happen to possess, and the piano, therefore, immediately asked him: “What are you there for?” Many a stray hour of Barnaby’s “old time” had been spent in pounding away at one rickety piano or other, and he really had some natural genius for music, so that his reply in the shape of “amateur performance” was by no means discreditable to him. Mrs. Manning was looking at her husband in a good deal of amazement, when the music was interrupted again by what Val called “trouble in the piano.” This time the instrument complained that that kind of playing made him very sick, and begged Bar to “fetch on his orchestra.” In response to this, there followed a very fair medley of imitations of half a dozen different instruments, winding up with a duet between a cat and an accordion, gleefully accompanied by the piano.