128 THE FLORIST. 
clarified and strengthened his throat with raindrops, as the operatic 
songstress with stout. 
‘¢ Then Ida, with a voice that like a bell, 
Tolled by an earthquake, in a tumbling tower, 
Rang ruin, answered, full of grief and scorn.” 
“ Grundy,” she said (he told me subsequently, with intense pathos, 
that she had not addressed him by his surname since he upset “ them 
~ gold fishes,” fifteen years ago, and he would much have preferred that 
she had commenced with “ Pick-pocket’’) ‘‘ Grundy, be good enough to 
listen to that flute, and tell me which particular tones are inferior in 
sweetness to your big bassoon. And tell me at the same time, Mr. 
Joseph” (he would repeat the “ Mr.” with an extreme disgust, as 
though it were an epithet too vile and dreadful for any but the Prince 
of darkness), ‘tell me why that chorister in his black cassock should 
not sing his. anthems all the year round, as you once a week in the 
quire. It may be my want of taste, Joseph Grundy, but I prefer the 
tune which he is now singing, to your favourite, ‘ Bobbing Round!’ 
Shoot the Blackbirds! Kill our Minnesingers! I will not dwell upon 
the perils which must result, both to life and property, from your first 
experiments with a gun; I pass over the trifling inconvenience of our 
compulsory residence in the cellar, while you broke every pane in the 
house; but I pause to ask you how you dare to propose the murder of 
those sweet musicians, who not only sing for you as you work, but eat 
your grubs and wireworms by the bushel? Cover your Cherries with 
nets, Joseph Grundy—and your head with shame! You are worse, I 
declare, than that dull yahoo from the mining districts, who coming to 
spend a few days in the country, ‘could not sleep o’ nights for them 
nasty nightingales.’ Shall I take our cage to Verjuice, and order her 
to make you a canary dumpling, or would you prefer that four-and- 
twenty blackbirds be forthwith baked ina pie? Seriously,—do those 
birds no hurt. ‘Taught by a Power that pities me, I learn to pity 
them ;’ and I commend the lesson to you.” 
Then her neat figure, in its grey silken dress, moved away upon the 
gravel homewards; and he was left lamenting. And now befell a 
visitation, too common in an unloving world; a lancer rode forth to 
prick the wounded ; a donkey came to kick the ailing lion. Like a 
pirate upon some helpless wreck, sweeps down Mrs. Verjuice upon 
Joseph's grief, With bad taste and worse grammar, she announced her 
solemn conviction that it was his, Joseph’s, desire and haim to break 
his missusses arts, and it was her opinion, though she judged no one, 
that he was in Co. (by which she meant in partnership) with most of 
the internal powers; and she only hoped he might not some day find 
himself where the worm never should be squenched. This and much 
additional rubbish she discharged with great volubility, and then, 
imitating her mistress, retired with dignity. 
But distinct and separate, as the orators themselves, were the effects 
of the two orations. Miss Susan’s speech left her hearer sad, ruthfully 
penitent concerning the blackbirds, and as thoroughly ashamed of the 
subject, as the Ancient Mariner must have been of the albatross hung 
about his neck. Mrs. V.’s remarks appeared, on the contrary, the 
