"Patrick said not. He told me about a man he worked for in Oshkosh who
had a team of mules which always stood on their heads when they were
not at work. He said all the mules in Oshkosh did. So Patrick tied a
heavy stone to our horse's tail to Balance him and keep him straight.
And this worked to a charm until I took the horse to church one
Sunday, when, while a crowd stood round him looking at him, he swung
his tail around and brained six boys with the stone."

"Brained them, love?"

"Well, I didn't see them myself, but Patrick told me, when I came out
of church, that they were as good as dead. And he said he remembered
that that Oshkosh man used to coax his mules to stand on their legs by
letting them hear music. It soothed them, he said. And so Patrick got
a friend to come around and sit in the stall and calm our horse by
playing on the accordion."

"Did it make him calmer?"

"It seemed to at first; but one day Patrick undertook to bleed him for
the blind staggers, and he must have cut the horse in the wrong place,
for the poor brute fell over on the accordion person and died, nearly
killing the musician."

"The horse is dead, then? Where is the bill?"

"I'll read it to you:

THE BILL.