ly stopping now and then to take breath and
soliloquize about the Marchioness; and it was only after he
'had nearly maddened the people of the house, and at both the
next doors, and over the way,' that he shut up the book and
went to sleep. The result of this was that the next morning
he got a notice to quit from his landlady, who had been in
waiting on the stairs for that purpose since the dawn of day.

Jack Redburn, too (_M.H.C._), seems to have found consolation
in this instrument, spending his wet Sundays in 'blowing a
very slow tune on the flute.'

There is one, and only one, recorded instance of this very
meek instrument suddenly asserting itself by going on strike,
and that is in the sketch entitled _Private Theatres_ (_S.B.S._
13), where the amateurs take so long to dress for their parts
that 'the flute says he'll be blowed if he plays any more.'

We must on no account forget the serenade with which the
gentlemen boarders proposed to honour the Miss Pecksniffs. The
performance was both vocal and instrumental, and the description
of the flute-player is delightful.

It was very affecting, very. Nothing more dismal could
have been desired by the most fastidious taste.... The
youngest gentleman blew his melancholy into a flute. He
didn't blow much out of it, but that was all the better.

After a description of the singing we have more about the flute.

The flute of the youngest gentleman was wild and
fitful. It came and went in gusts, like the wind. For
a long time together he seemed to have left off, and
when it was quite settled by Mrs. Todgers and the
young ladies that, overcome by his feelings, he had
retired in tears, he unexpectedly turned up again at
the very top of the tune, gasping for breath. He was
a tremendous performer. There was no knowing where to
have him; and exactly when you thought he was doing
nothing at all, then was he doing the very thing that
ought to astonish you most.

Yet another performer is the domestic young gentleman (_C.P._)
who holds skeins of silk for the ladies to wind, and who then

brings down his flute in compliance with a request
from the youngest Miss Gray, and plays divers tunes
out of a very small book till supper-time.

When Nancy went to the prison to look for Oliver Twist, she
found nobody in durance vile except a man who had been taken
up for playing the flute, and who was bewailing the