father did?" asked the piccolo.

"He played the clarinet."

"You said he blew his 'dog's-nose.'"

"Don't be a ass, Fred!" said the banjo, aggrieved. "How the blazes could
a man blow his dog's nose, unless he muzzled it with a handkercher, and
then twisted its tail? He played the clarinet, I say; and my father
played the musical glasses, which was a form of harmony pertiklerly
genial to him. Amongst us we've piped out a good long century--ah! we
have, for all I look sich a babby bursting on sops and spoon meat."

"What!" said the little man by the door. "You don't include them cockt
hatses in your expeerunce?"

"My grandfather wore 'em, sir. He wore a play-actin' coat, too, and
buckles to his shoes, when he'd got any; and he and a friend or two made
a permanency of 'waits' (only they called 'em according to the season),
and got their profit goin' from house to house, principally in the
country, and discoursin' music at the low rate of whatever they could get
for it."

"Ain't you comin' to the ghost, Jack?" said the little man hungrily.

"All in course, sir. Well, gentlemen, it was hard times pretty often with
my grandfather and his friends, as you may suppose; and never so much
as when they had to trudge it across country, with the nor'-easter
buzzin' in their teeth and the snow piled on their cockt hats like lemon
sponge on entry dishes. The rewards, I've heard him say--for he lived to
be ninety, nevertheless--was poor compensation for the drifts, and the
inflienza, and the broken chilblains; but now and again they'd get a fair
skinful of liquor from a jolly squire, as 'd set 'em up like boggarts
mended wi' new broomsticks."

"Ho-haw!" broke in a hurdle-maker in a corner; and then, regretting the
publicity of his merriment, put his fingers bashfully to his stubble
lips.

"Now," said the banjo, "it's of a pertikler night and a pertikler skinful
that I'm a-going to tell you; and that night fell dark, and that skinful
were took a hundred years ago this December, as I'm a Jack-pudden!"

He paused a moment for effect, before he went on:--

"They were down in the sou'-west country, which they little knew; and
were anighing Winchester city, or should 'a' been. But they got muzzed on
the ungodly downs, and before they guessed, they was off the track. My
good hat! there they was, as lost in the snow as three nutshells
a-sinkin' into a hasty pudden. Well, they wandered round; pretty
confident at first, but getting ma