“I’ve got a piece,” said the clarionet slowly, looking at the sky with a pathetic air, “a piece as I composed myself. I don’t often play it, ’cause, you know, sir, one doesn’t ’xactly like to shove one’s-self too prominently afore the public. I calls it the ‘Banging-smash Polka.’ But I generally charge hextra for it, for it’s dreadful hard on the lungs, and the trombone he gets cross when I mention it, for it nearly bu’sts the hinstrument; besides, it kicks up sich a row that it puts the French ’orn’s nose out o’ jint—you can’t ’ear a note of him. I flatter myself that the key-bugle plays his part to parfection, but the piece was written chiefly for the trombone and clarionet; the one being deep and crashing, the other shrill and high. I had the battle o’ Waterloo in my mind w’en I wrote it.”
“Will that do?” said Gildart, putting half-a-crown into the man’s hand.
The clarionet nodded, and, turning to his comrades, winked gravely as he pronounced the magic word—“Banging-smash.”
Next moment there was a burst as if a bomb-shell had torn up the street, and this was followed up by a series of crashes so rapid, violent, and wildly intermingled, that the middy’s heart almost leapt out of him with delight!
In a few seconds three doors burst open, and three servant-girls rushed at the band with three sixpences to beseech it to go away.
“Couldn’t go under a shillin’ a head,” said the clarionet gravely.
A word from Gildart, however, induced him to accept of the bribe and depart.
As they went along the street Gildart walked with the clarionet and held earnest converse with him—apparently of a persuasive nature, for the clarionet frequently shook his head and appeared to remonstrate. Presently he called on his comrades to stop, and held with them a long palaver, in which the French horn seemed to be an objector, and the trombone an assenter, while the key-bugle didn’t seem to care. At last they all came to an agreement.
“Now,” said the middy, taking out his purse, “that’s all fixed; here is five shillings in advance, and twenty shillings will follow when the performance is over. Don’t forget the time and place: the village of Cove, the rear of Stephen Gaff’s cottage—everybody knows it—and eight o’clock precisely.”