Mr. Morfin (D. & S.), ‘a cheerful-looking, hazel-eyed elderly bachelor,’ was
a great musical amateur—in his way—after business, and had a paternal affection for his violoncello, which was once in every week transported from Islington, his place of abode, to a certain club-room hard by the Bank, where quartets of the most tormenting and excruciating nature were executed every Wednesday evening by a private party.
His habit of humming his musical recollections of these evenings was a source of great annoyance to Mr. James Carker, who devoutly wished ‘that he would make a bonfire of his violoncello, and burn his books with it.’ There was only a thin partition between the rooms which these two gentlemen occupied, and on another occasion Mr. Morfin performed an extraordinary feat in order to warn the manager of his presence.
I have whistled, hummed tunes, gone accurately through the whole of Beethoven's Sonata in B, to let him know that I was within hearing, but he never heeded me.
This particular sonata has not hitherto been identified.
It is comforting to know that the fall of the House of Dombey made no difference to Mr. Morfin, who continued to solace himself by producing ‘the most dismal and forlorn sounds out of his violoncello before going to bed,’ a proceeding which had no effect on his deaf landlady, beyond producing ‘a sensation of something rumbling in her bones.’
Nor were the quartet parties interfered with. They came round regularly, his violoncello was in good tune, and there was nothing wrong in his world. Happy Mr. Morfin!
Another 'cellist was the Rev. Charles Timson, who, when practising his instrument in his bedroom, used to give strict orders that he was on no account to be disturbed.
It was under the pretence of buying ‘a second-hand wiolinceller’ that Bucket visited the house of the dealer in musical instruments in order to effect the arrest of Mr. George (B.H.).