'accompanied on the chin by Master Tippin.' To return
to Mr. Hardy, this gentleman was evidently deeply interested
in all sorts and degrees of music, but he got out of his depth
in a conversation with the much-travelled Captain Helves. After
the three Miss Briggses had finished their guitar performances,
Mr. Hardy approached the Captain with the question, 'Did you
ever hear a Portuguese tambourine?'

'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.

The question is unanswered to this day, though Hardy afterwards
suggests it is another name for a humbug.

When Dickens visited the school where the half-time system
was in force, he found the boys undergoing military and naval
drill. A small boy played the fife while the others went
through their exercises. After that a boys' band appeared,
the youngsters being dressed in a neat uniform. Then came
a choral class, who sang 'the praises of a summer's day to
a harmonium.' In the arithmetical exercises the small piper
excels (_U.T._ 29).

Wise as the serpent is the four feet of performer on
the nearest approach to that instrument.

This was written when the serpent was practically extinct, but
Dickens would be very familiar with the name of the instrument,
and may have seen and heard it in churches in his younger days.

In referring to another boy's attempt at solving the
arithmetical puzzles, he mentions the cymbals, combined with
a faint memory of St. Paul.

I observe the player of the cymbals to dash at a
sounding answer now and then rather than not cut in at
all; but I take that to be in the way of his instrument.

In _Great Expectations_ Mr. Wopsle, who is a parish clerk
by profession, had an ambition not only to tread the boards,
but to start off as Hamlet. His appearance was not a success,
and the audience was derisive.

On his taking the recorders--very like a little black
flute that had just been played in the orchestra and
handed out at the door--he was called upon unanimously
for 'Rule Britannia.'

Reference has already been made to Bucket's music-shop,
so we must not forget to visit Caleb Plummer's little room,
where th