In his ardent devotion to his principles and his lodge, and also in consideration of a certain weekly honorarium, Billy fitted up in his back yard an outhouse in which he allowed to be stored their sashes, banners, and regalia for processions, and their bludgeons, blunderbusses, and pokers intended for political arguments with National League invaders.
For three months in this shanty L. O. L. 1111 guarded its sacred banners and kept its powder dry. However, during the past few weeks, an assemblage of peace disturbers, who paid no rent, subscribed to no loyal principles, marched in no patriotic processions, and joined in no salubrious Tory scrimmages, have had illegal possession of that cabin.
During that time its roof has borne the erring feet of all the cats of Sandy Row. There has been a convocation, a conference, a mass meeting, a howling congregation of cats there from midnight to dawn, who have given musical entertainments of excruciating variety and such persistent continuity that they have never indulged in even ten minutes’ interval for refreshments. About ten minutes to twelve a tortoise-shell tenor gives the signal for devotions by a prolonged squeal in G sharp. Then a short-tailed Persian soprano joins in, and there is a five minutes’ duet, to which a Highland bagpipes, a Savoyard hurdy-gurdy, or Red Shirt’s war-whoop is the music of the spheres. When they have reached the most horrifying part of this performance a black demon with the influenza throws in a basso-profundo remonstrance, and a gray tabby with the catarrh serenades the moon in an agonizing solo, with scales and variations. Then the midnight feline wanderers lift up their voices in scores (numerically and vocally), and a competitive chorus begins, into which each cat seems to throw its very vitals, and the air trembles with heart-rending screeches, and yells, and spits, and growls, and hisses, and whistles, and cries for help, and moans, and groans, and raspings; and the twins in Jones’s, next door, waken up and join in the medley, and Mr. and Mrs. Jones try to soothe them to slumber with soul-sickening lullabies; and the lodgers put their heads out of the window, and swear at the cats in baritone and a North of Ireland accent; and all the dogs in the street join in with diversified barks and carefully assorted yelps, from the shrill treble of the parson’s Skye terrier to the thundering tones of the grocer’s mastiff, while the milkman’s jackass kicks the panel out of his stable door, and, putting his head through, ejaculates a hoarse demand for thistles in such a diabolical bray that you think chaos has come again, and Pandemonium reigns supreme.