"Hard!" said the trumpeter; "sure they're not hard at all--but as soft and smooth as satin inside--just feel them--rub your fingers inside."
Andy obeyed; and his finger was chopped between the two brazen plates. Andy roared, the bystanders laughed, and the trumpeter triumphed in his wit. Sometimes he would come behind an unsuspecting boor, and give, close to his ear, a discordant bray from his trumpet, like the note of a jackass, which made _him_ jump, and the crowd roar with merriment; or, perhaps, when the clarionet or the fife was engaged in giving the people a tune, he would drown either, or both of them, in a wild yell of his instrument. As they could not make reprisals upon him, he had his own way in playing whatever he liked for his audience; and in doing so indulged in all the airs of a great artist--pulling out one crook from another--blowing through them softly, and shaking the moisture from them in a tasty style--arranging them with a fastidious nicety--then, after the final adjustment of the mouth-piece, lipping the instrument with an affectation exquisitely grotesque; but before he began he always asked for another drink.
"It's not for myself," he would say, "but for the thrumpet, the crayther; the divil a note she can blow without a dhrop."
Then, taking a mug of drink, he would present it to the bell of the trumpet, and afterwards transfer it to his own lips, always bowing to the instrument first, and saying, "Your health, ma'am!"
This was another piece of delight to the mob, and Andy thought him the funniest fellow he ever met, though he _did_ chop his finger.
"Faix, sir, an' it is dhry work, I'm sure, playing the thing."
"Dhry!" said the trumpeter, "'pon my ruffles and tuckers--and that's a cambric oath--it's worse nor lime-burnin', so it is--it makes a man's throat as parched as pays."
"Howld your prate!" said the trumpeter, elegantly, and silenced all reply by playing a tune. As soon as it was ended, he turned to Andy and asked for a cork.
The man of jokes affected to put it into the trumpet.
"To bottle up the music," said the trumpeter--"sure all the music would run about the place if I didn't do that."
Andy gave a vague sort of "ha, ha!" as if he were not quite sure whether the trumpeter was in jest or earnest, and thought at the moment that to play the trumpet and practical jokes must be the happiest life in the world. Filled with this idea, Andy was on the watch how he could possess himself of the trumpet, for could he get one blast on it, he would be happy: a chance at last opened to him; after some time, the lively owner of the treasure laid down his instrument to handle a handsome blackthorn which one of the retainers was displaying, and he made some flourishes with the weapon to show that music was not his only accomplishment. Andy seized the opportunity and the trumpet, and made off to one of the sheds where they had been regaling; and, shutting the door to secure himself from observation, he put the trumpet to his mouth and distended his cheeks near to bursting with the violence of his efforts to produce a sound; but all his puffing was unavailing for some minutes. At last a faint cracked squeak answered a more desperate blast than before, and Andy was delighted. "Everything must have a beginning," thought Andy, "and maybe I'll get a tune out of it yet." He tried again, and increased in power; for a sort of strangled screech was the result. Andy was in ecstasy, and began to indulge visions of being one day a trumpeter; he strutted up and down the shed like the original he so envied, and repeated some of the drolleries he heard him utter. He also imitated his actions of giving a drink to the trumpet, and was more generous to the instrument than the owner, for he really poured about half a pint of beer down its throat: he then drank its health, and finished by "bottling up the music," absolutely cramming a cork into the trumpet. Now Andy, having no idea the trumpeter made a sham of the action, made a vigorous plunge of a goodly cork into the throat of the instrument, and, in so doing, the cork went further than he intended: he tried to withdraw it, but his clumsy fingers, instead of extracting, only drove it in deeper--he became alarmed--and, seizing a fork, strove with its assistance to remedy the mischief he had done, but the more he poked, the worse; and, in his fright, he thought the safest thing he could do was to cram the cork out of sight altogether, and having soon done that, he returned to the yard, and laid down the trumpet unobserved.
