that, mingled with the faint hope that the last was the last, that
aggravates the tossing listener until he has murder in his heart.
He longs for daylight, hoping that the voices of the night will then
cease, and that sleep will come with the blessed morning. But he has
forgotten the birds, who at the first streak of gray in the east have
assembled in the trees near his chamber-window, and keep up for an
hour the most rasping dissonance,--an orchestra in which each artist
is tuning his instrument, setting it in a different key and to play a
different tune: each bird recalls a different tune, and none sings
"Annie Laurie,"--to pervert Bayard Taylor's song.

Give us the quiet of a city on the night before a journey. As we
mounted skyward in our hotel, and went to bed in a serene altitude,
we congratulated ourselves upon a reposeful night. It began well.
But as we sank into the first doze, we were startled by a sudden
crash. Was it an earthquake, or another fire? Were the neighboring
buildings all tumbling in upon us, or had a bomb fallen into the
neighboring crockery-store? It was the suddenness of the onset that
startled us, for we soon perceived that it began with the clash of
cymbals, the pounding of drums, and the blaring of dreadful brass.
It was somebody's idea of music. It opened without warning. The men
composing the band of brass must have stolen silently into the alley
about the sleeping hotel, and burst into the clamor of a rattling
quickstep, on purpose. The horrible sound thus suddenly let loose
had no chance of escape; it bounded back from wall to wall, like the
clapping of boards in a tunnel, rattling windows and stunning all
cars, in a vain attempt to get out over the roofs. But such music
does not go up. What could have been the intention of this assault
we could not conjecture. It was a time of profound peace through the
country; we had ordered no spontaneous serenade, if it was a