“Yes, sir, I ham.”
“Have you any objection to earn a sovereign or two?”
“No, sir, I han’t.”
“It’s a goodish band,” observed Gildart.
“A fus’-rater,” replied the clarionet. “No doubt the trombone is a little cracked and brassy, so to speak, because of a hinfluenza as has wonted him for some weeks; but there’s good stuff in ’im, sir, and plenty o’ lungs. The key-bugle is a noo ’and, but ’e’s capital, ’ticklerly in the ’igh notes an’ flats; besides, bein’ young, ’e’ll improve. As to the French ’orn, there ain’t his ekal in the country; w’en he does the pathetic it would make a banker weep. You like pathetic music, sir?”
“Not much,” replied the middy.
“No! now that’s hodd. I do. It ’armonises so with the usual state o’ my feelin’s. My feelin’s is a’most always pathetic, sir.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, ’cept at meal-times, w’en I do manage to git a little jolly. Ah! sir, music ain’t wot it used to be. There’s a general flatness about it now, sir, an’ people don’t seem to admire it ’alf so much as w’en I first began. But if you don’t like the pathetic, p’raps you like the bravoory style?”
“I doat on it,” said Gildart. “Come, let’s have a touch of the ‘bravoory.’”