“Try, sir.”
Dick struck the chord of the key in which the piece was set, and the young officer blew a note of a most uncertain sound.
“Fully a quarter of a tone out, sir,” said Dick, thoroughly in earnest now over his task. “Shall I alter the slide, sir?”
“If you please.”
Dick altered the slide again and again till his pupil blew the note in perfect accord, and then they began,
with the air played slowly out of time—a most feeble performance—right to the end of the strain, when the lieutenant lowered his flute, and looked at his master with a rather pitiful, but comically perplexed, expression.
“Horribly bad, isn’t it?” he said.
“Well, it might be a good deal better, sir.”
“Yes, of course. Will you be good enough to run through it?”