lay, but disdained to do it.

At length, the Misses Briggs began in real earnest. It was a new Spanish
composition, for three voices and three guitars. The effect was
electrical. All eyes were turned upon the captain, who was reported to
have once passed through Spain with his regiment, and who must be well
acquainted with the national music. He was in raptures. This was
sufficient; the trio was encored; the applause was universal; and never
had the Tauntons suffered such a complete defeat.

'Bravo! bravo!' ejaculated the captain;--'bravo!'

'Pretty! isn't it, sir?' inquired Mr. Samuel Briggs, with the air of a
self-satisfied showman. By-the-bye, these were the first words he had
been heard to utter since he left Boswell-court the evening before.

'De-lightful!' returned the captain, with a flourish, and a military
cough;--'de-lightful!'

'Sweet instrument!' said an old gentleman with a bald head, who had been
trying all the morning to look through a telescope, inside the glass of
which Mr. Hardy had fixed a large black wafer.

'Did you ever hear a Portuguese tambourine?' inquired that jocular
individual.

'Did _you_ ever hear a tom-tom, sir?' sternly inquired the captain, who
lost no opportunity of showing off his travels, real or pretended.

'A what?' asked Hardy, rather taken aback.

'A tom-tom.'

'Never!'

'Nor a gum-gum?'

'Never!'

'What _is_ a gum-gum?' eagerly inquired several young ladies.

'When I was in the East Indies,' replied the captain--(here was a
discovery--he had been in the East Indies!)--'when I was in the East
Indies, I was once stopping a few thousand miles up the country, on a
visit at the house of a very particular friend of mine, Ram Chowdar Doss
Azuph Al Bowlar--a devilish pleasant fellow. As we were enjoying our
hookahs, one evening, in the cool verandah in front of his villa, we were
rather surprised by the sudden appearance of thirty-four of his
Kit-ma-gars (for he had rather a large establishment there), accompanied
by an equal number of Con-su-mars, approaching the house with a
threatening aspect, and beating a tom-tom. The Ram started up--'

'Who?' inquired the bald gentleman, intensely interested.

'The Ram--Ram Chowdar--'

'Oh!' said the old gentleman, 'beg your pardon; pray go on.'

'--Started up and drew a pistol. "Helves," said he, "my boy,"--he always
called me, my boy--"Helves," said he, "do you hear that tom-tom?" "I
do," said I. His countenance,