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It is a strange medley of snare-, kettle-, and bass drums, of fifes, clarionets, and piccolos, with an occasional "Kent bugle" the predecessor of the cornet or some other instrument of brass. It is poor music at the best, and it cannot go far beyond marking time for the marching. But is it not better than the simple drum and fife of a common training-day?

But on his way out he came up behind her, and she was whistling "Fisher's Hornpipe" so loudly and clearly that all the piccolos in the world should have disjointed themselves and crept into their cases for shame. The grocer's young man stopped and pushed back his cap until it hung on his collar button behind. "That's out o' sight, Kid," said he.

If anything in this world can give you an approximative idea of this exquisitely perfumed movement, it is the dance for the piccolos in the Almée of Felicien David.

The kettle-drums, marking the cadences, rolled at exact intervals. The director beat time furiously, as though dragging up the notes and chords with the end of his baton, while the horns and cornets blared, the bass viols growled, and the flageolets and piccolos lost themselves in an amazing complication of liquid gurgles and modulated roulades. On the stage every one was singing.

For years longer than a dog's lifetime Luitpold Wolkenstein had disposed of the pretensions and strivings of the Balkan States over the cup of cream-topped coffee that sleek-headed piccolos had brought him.

Suddenly, and without any apparent reason, these burst forth a roar like that of a great orchestra with every instrument played at its loudest rounds of applause from kettle-drums, trombones and big horns; screams of laughter from piccolos, clarionettes and flutes, buzzings of subdued talk by groups of bass viols and the lesser strings, the whole broken by the ringing notes of a song that soared for an instant clear of the din, only to be overtaken and drowned in the mighty shout of approval.

For years longer than a dog's lifetime sleek-headed piccolos had placed the Neue Freie Presse and a cup of cream-topped coffee on his table; for years he had sat at the same spot, under the dust-coated, stuffed eagle, that had once been a living, soaring bird on the Styrian mountains, and was now made monstrous and symbolical with a second head grafted on to its neck and a gilt crown planted on either dusty skull.

From time to time one of the piccolos, a fat little boy from the South, carried in pitchers of flat beer, brewed in the suburbs. As it was a hot day, he was kept busy. The waiters had gone through a trying morning; there were many strangers in Paris. Outside, the Boulevard des Italiens, despite its shade trees, broiled under a torrid July sun that swam in a mercilessly blue sky.

And he utilized the common instruments in original fashion, made the harps imitate bells, the wood-wind blow fanfares, the horns hold organ-points; combined piccolos with bassoons and contrabasses, wrote unisons for eight horns, let the trombones run scales

Listening again, the similitude that seemed appropriate at first was cast aside for another, and then another still. The hidden singers scattered all about their rushy island were small, fantastic, human minstrels, performing on a variety of instruments, some unknown, others recognizable bones and castanets, tiny hurdy-gurdies, piccolos, banjos, tabours, and Pandean pipes a strange medley!