I gave the window-sash a couple of upper-cuts and a few short-arm punches, but it sat there and laughed in my face.

The brakeman came through, and I spoke to him about the window.  He said, “The first time I see the president of the road I’ll tell him about it!” and left me flat.

Once more I tried to open that window, but I only succeeded in opening my collar; so then I opened my mouth and made a short but spicy announcement, whereupon the old lady in the seat ahead of me got up and left the car.

Just then the train pulled into a station which I hadn’t paid for, but I went out and took it, because it contained a little fresh air.

Some day I will mention the name of this railroad company and make them blush.

Well, after I left Bunch that afternoon, I ducked for the depot, and reached Ruraldene just in time to witness the beginning of a most painful episode.

The house was lighted up from cellar to attic.  As soon as I opened the door I found our respected Mayor, Uncle Peter, and he was also lit up.

“It’s a surprise, Johnny,” he whispered hoarsely.  “Clara J. is giving an entertainment for the benefit of the Christian Soldiers’ League, and it’s going to cost you two dollars to come into your own house.”

It made an awful hit with Uncle Peter to see me cough up those two bones, but I said nothing and made good.

My wife called it a musicale, but to me it looked more like a fight.

With the help of Aunt Martha and Alice Grey, my wife arranged the programme and kept it dark to surprise the rest of the family.

It was such a surprise to me that I felt like doing a glide to the woodlands.

It was my second experience with a musicale, and this one cured me all right.

You know I don’t care much for society—­especially when it breaks into our bungalow and begins to scratch my furniture with its high-heeled shoes.  But just to please Peaches I promised to go in the parlor and not be an insult to those present.

For awhile everybody sat around and sized up what everybody else was wearing.

Then they gave each other the silent double-cross.

Presently my wife whispered to Miss Cleopatra Hungerschnitz, whereupon that young lady giggled her way over to the piano and began to knock its teeth out.

The way Cleopatra went after one of Beethoven’s sonatas and slapped its ears was pitiful.

Cleopatra learned to injure a piano at a conservatory of music, and she could take a fugo by Victor Hugo and leave it for dead in about thirty-two bars.

At the finish of the sonata we all applauded Cleopatra just as loudly as we could, in the hope that she would faint with surprise and stop playing, but no such luck.

She tied a couple of chords together and swung that piano like a pair of Indian clubs.

First she did “My Old Kentucky Home,” with variations, until everybody who had a home began to weep for fear it might get to be like her Kentucky home.