Charles Dickens - Sketches by Boz

“Perhaps,” he said in a very insinuating manner, “Captain Helves will oblige us?” Mrs. Taunton's countenance lighted up, for the captain only sang duets, and couldn't sing them with anybody but one of her daughters.

“Really,” said that warlike individual, “I should be very happy, “but—”

“Oh! pray do,” cried all the young ladies.

“Miss Emily, have you any objection to join in a duet?”

“Oh! not the slightest,” returned the young lady, in a tone which clearly showed she had the greatest possible objection.

“Shall I accompany you, dear?” inquired one of the Miss Briggses, with the bland intention of spoiling the effect.

“Very much obliged to you, Miss Briggs,” sharply retorted Mrs. Taunton, who saw through the manoeuvre; “my daughters always sing without accompaniments.”

“And without voices,” tittered Mrs. Briggs, in a low tone.

“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Taunton, reddening, for she guessed the tenor of the observation, though she had not heard it clearly—“Perhaps it would be as well for some people, if their voices were not quite so audible as they are to other people.”

“And, perhaps, if gentlemen who are kidnapped to pay attention to some persons” daughters, had not sufficient discernment to pay attention to other persons” daughters,” returned Mrs. Briggs, “some persons would not be so ready to display that ill-temper which, thank God, distinguishes them from other persons.”

“Persons!” ejaculated Mrs. Taunton.

“Persons,” replied Mrs. Briggs.

“Insolence!”

“Creature!”

“Hush! hush!” interrupted Mr. Percy Noakes, who was one of the very few by whom this dialogue had been overheard. “Hush!—pray, silence for the duet.”

After a great deal of preparatory crowing and humming, the captain began the following duet from the opera of “Paul and Virginia,” in that grunting tone in which a man gets down, Heaven knows where, without the remotest chance of ever getting up again. This, in private circles, is frequently designated “a bass voice.”

“See (sung the captain) from o-ce-an ri-sing Bright flames the or-b of d-ay. From yon gro-ove, the varied so-ongs—”

Here, the singer was interrupted by varied cries of the most dreadful description, proceeding from some grove in the immediate vicinity of the starboard paddle-box.

“My child!” screamed Mrs. Fleetwood. “My child! it is his voice—I know it.”

Mr. Fleetwood, accompanied by several gentlemen, here rushed to the quarter from whence the noise proceeded, and an exclamation of horror burst from the company; the general impression being, that the little innocent had either got his head in the water, or his legs in the machinery.

“What is the matter?” shouted the agonised father, as he returned with the child in his arms.

“Oh! oh! oh!” screamed the small sufferer again.

“What is the matter, dear?” inquired the father once more—hastily stripping off the nankeen frock, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the child had one bone which was not smashed to pieces.

“Oh! oh!—I'm so frightened!”

“What at, dear?—what at?” said the mother, soothing the sweet infant.

“Oh! he's been making such dreadful faces at me,” cried the boy, relapsing into convulsions at the bare recollection.

“He!—who?” cried everybody, crowding round him.

“Oh!—him!” replied the child, pointing at Hardy, who affected to be the most concerned of the whole group.

The real state of the case at once flashed upon the minds of all present, with the exception of the Fleetwoods and the Wakefields. The facetious Hardy, in fulfilment of his promise, had watched the child to a remote part of the vessel, and, suddenly appearing before him with the most awful contortions of visage, had produced his paroxysm of terror. Of course, he now observed that it was hardly necessary for him to deny the accusation; and the unfortunate little victim was accordingly led below, after receiving sundry thumps on the head from both his parents, for having the wickedness to tell a story.

This little interruption having been adjusted, the captain resumed, and Miss Emily chimed in, in due course. The duet was loudly applauded, and, certainly, the perfect independence of the parties deserved great commendation. Miss Emily sung her part, without the slightest reference to the captain; and the captain sang so loud, that he had not the slightest idea what was being done by his partner. After having gone through the last few eighteen or nineteen bars by himself, therefore, he acknowledged the plaudits of the circle with that air of self-denial which men usually assume when they think they have done something to astonish the company.

“Now,” said Mr. Percy Noakes, who had just ascended from the forecabin, where he had been busily engaged in decanting the wine, “if the Misses Briggs will oblige us with something before dinner, I am sure we shall be very much delighted.”

One of those hums of admiration followed the suggestion, which one frequently hears in society, when nobody has the most distant notion what he is expressing his approval of. The three Misses Briggs looked modestly at their mamma, and the mamma looked approvingly at her daughters, and Mrs. Taunton looked scornfully at all of them. The Misses Briggs asked for their guitars, and several gentlemen seriously damaged the cases in their anxiety to present them. Then, there was a very interesting production of three little keys for the aforesaid cases, and a melodramatic expression of horror at finding a string broken; and a vast deal of screwing and tightening, and winding, and tuning, during which Mrs. Briggs expatiated to those near her on the immense difficulty of playing a guitar, and hinted at the wondrous proficiency of her daughters in that mystic art. Mrs. Taunton whispered to a neighbour that it was “quite sickening!” and the Misses Taunton looked as if they knew how to play, but disdained to do it.

At length, the Misses Briggs began in real earnest. It was a new Spanish composition, for three voices and three guitars. The effect was electrical. All eyes were turned upon the captain, who was reported to have once passed through Spain with his regiment, and who must be well acquainted with the national music. He was in raptures. This was sufficient; the trio was encored; the applause was universal; and never had the Tauntons suffered such a complete defeat.

“Bravo! bravo!” ejaculated the captain;—“bravo!”

“Pretty! isn't it, sir?” inquired Mr. Samuel Briggs, with the air of a self-satisfied showman. By-the-bye, these were the first words he had been heard to utter since he left Boswell-court the evening before.

“De-lightful!” returned the captain, with a flourish, and a military cough;—“de-lightful!”

“Sweet instrument!” said an old gentleman with a bald head, who had been trying all the morning to look through a telescope, inside the glass of which Mr. Hardy had fixed a large black wafer.

“Did you ever hear a Portuguese tambourine?” inquired that jocular individual.

“Did YOU ever hear a tom-tom, sir?” sternly inquired the captain, who lost no opportunity of showing off his travels, real or pretended.

“A what?” asked Hardy, rather taken aback.

“A tom-tom.”

“Never!”

“Nor a gum-gum?”

“Never!”

“What IS a gum-gum?” eagerly inquired several young ladies.

“When I was in the East Indies,” replied the captain—(here was a discovery—he had been in the East Indies !)—“when I was in the East Indies, I was once stopping a few thousand miles up the country, on a visit at the house of a very particular friend of mine, Ram Chowdar Doss Azuph Al Bowlar—a devilish pleasant fellow. As we were enjoying our hookahs, one evening, in the cool verandah in front of his villa, we were rather surprised by the sudden appearance of thirty-four of his Kit-ma-gars (for he had rather a large establishment there), accompanied by an equal number of Con-su-mars, approaching the house with a threatening aspect, and beating a tom-tom. The Ram started up—”