"It's a wonder," returned the Donkey. "Well, I have a very nice setting of that." And he sang:

   "I like that," said Buddie. "Oh, and I've just thought

   of another old ax—I mean saw, if it

    is

   one—Don't count your chickens before they are hatched. Do you sing that?"

   "One of my best," replied the Donkey. And again he sang:

   "I like that the best," said Buddie, who knew what it was to tip over a pail of eggs, and felt as sorry for Sammy Patch as if he really existed.

   "It's one of my best," said the Donkey. "I don't call it my very best. Personally I prefer, Look before you leap. You've heard that old saw, I dare say."

   "No; but that doesn't matter. I shall like it just as well," replied Buddie.

   "

    That

   doesn't follow, but

    this

   does," said the Donkey, and once more he sang:

   Buddie, however, clung to her former opinion. "I like

    Sammy Patch

   the best," said she.

   "That," rejoined the singer, "is a matter of taste, as the donkey said to the horse who preferred hay to thistles. Usually the public likes best the very piece the composer himself cares least about. So wherever I go I hear, 'Oh, Professor, do sing us that beautiful song about Sammy Patch.' And I can't poke my head inside the Thistle Club but some donkey bawls out, 'Here's Bray! Now we'll have a song. Sing us

    Sammy Patch

   , old fellow.' Really, I've sung 

 Prev. P 19/98 next