he good opinion of the house is repeated once or twice, and
then with the air of a man who has important business on hand, he mounts
his elevated seat. He gives one or two magical taps on the stand, and
the chaos of sounds is annihilated with the exception of the
lamentations of one refractory violin, over which the owner has been for
the last half hour repeatedly, first inclining his head in a horizontal
position, and then tugging away at the screws. At this the director
seems to be much annoyed, and the poor violinist, more annoyed, mutters
to a companion that he wishes himself an _unspeakably_ long way
hence--probably in Italy where he could procure some good strings.

The resisting violin having been brought to subjection, the director
casts an eye over the whole body of musicians, and having thrown back
his head and lifted up both arms, very much in the supposed attitude of
Ajax defying the thunder, he remains perfectly motionless for an
instant, and then brings forward the whole of his body from the hips
upwards, with a rapid and powerful jerk, which introduces his forehead
into close proximity with the musical score which he pretends to be
reading, the baton strikes the stand with a loud clap, and one old
drummer proceeds to touch the drum, but in so gentle a manner, that it
sounds as if, instead of using the sticks he were tossing some grains of
shot on it. You now tremble for the safety of the director, and you
enter into an arithmetical calculation with yourself, the basis of which
is, that if the director by such a dangerous inclination of the person
can only bring one poor drummer into movement, what amount of bodily
labour he will be compelled to undergo, in order to operate on all that
concourse of musicians. But your fears are dissipated in a few moments,
for you discover that great sounds and little sounds are accompanied
with about the same degree of gesticulatory emphasis. In the meantime
some horns have commenced to blow on a very small scale, not hard
enough, you would suppose, to drive the dust out of them, and if the
piston of the cornet did not rattle so, you would pronounce its playing
all a sham. The violins and flutes begin to be audible and the
violinists are suddenly struck with a simultaneous desire to pick the
strings, just as if that would make any music. All the other instruments
are now doing duty in very feeble tones, and you take a look round the
house to see who are there; and you wond