“obleege me with the corkscrew, somebody.”
“Won’t forget as you promised us a song, Brim!” said Mr. Jenkins, passing the necessary implement.
“Oh, I won’t disappoint ye,” answered Mr. Brimberly, drawing the cork with a practised hand; “my father were a regular songster, a fair carollin’ bird ‘e were, sir.”
“‘Ow about ‘Knocked ‘em in the Old Kent Road’?” Mr. Stevens suggested.
“Sir!” exclaimed Mr. Brimberly, pausing in the act of filling the glasses, “that’s rather a—a low song, ain’t it? What do you think, Mr. Jenkins?”
“Low?” answered Mr. Jenkins, “it’s as low as—as mud, sir. I might say it’s infernal vulgar—what?”
“Why, I don’t care for it myself,” Mr. Stevens admitted rather humbly, “it was merely a suggestion.”
“With your good favour,” said Mr. Brimberly, after a tentative sip at his glass, “I’ll sing you a old song as was a rare favourite of my father’s.”
“Why, then,” said Mr. Jenkins, taking up his banjo, “oblige us with the key.”
“The key, sir?” answered Mr. Brimberly, pulling down his waistcoat, “what key might you mean?”
“The key of the note dominant, Brim.”
Mr. Brimberly stared and felt for his whisker.
“Note dominant,” he murmured; “I don’t think my song has anything of that sort—”
“Oh, well, just whistle a couple o’ bars.”
“Bars,” said Mr. Brimberly, shaking his head, “bars, sir, is things wherewith I do not ‘old; bars are the ‘aunt of the ‘umble ‘erd, sir—”
“No, no, Brim,” explained Mr. Stevens, “Jenk merely means you to ‘um the air.”
“Ah, to be sure, now I appre’end! I’ll ‘um you the hair with pleasure.”
Mr. Brimberly cleared his throat vigorously and thereafter emitted certain rumbling noises, whereat Mr. Jenkins cocked a knowing head.
“C sharp, I think?” he announced.
“Not much, Jenk!” said Mr. Stevens decidedly, “it was D flat—as flat a D as ever I heard!”
“It was C!” Mr. Jenkins said, “I appeal to Brim.”
“Well,” said Mr. Brimberly ponderously, “I’m reether inclined to think I made it a D—if it wasn’t D it was F nat’ral. But if it’s all the same to you, I’ll accompany myself at the piano-forty.”
“What,” exclaimed Mr. Stevens, emptying and refilling his glass, seeing which Mr. Jenkins did the same, “what—do you play, Brim?”
“By hear, sir—only by hear,” said Mr. Brimberly modestly, as, having placed bottle and glass upon the piano within convenient reach, he seated himself upon the stool, struck three or four stumbling chords and then, vamping an accompaniment a trifle monotonous as to bass, burst forth into song:
“It was a rich merchant that in London did dwell, He had but one daughter, a beautiful gell, Which her name it was Dinah, scarce sixteen years old, She’d a very large fortune in silver and gold.”
Chorus:
“Ri tooral ri tooral ri tooral i-day, Ri tooral ri tooral ri tooral i-day.”
It was now that Mr. Ravenslee, his rough clothes replaced by immaculate attire, entered unostentatiously, and, wholly unobserved by the company, seated himself and lounged there while Mr. Brimberly sang blithely on:
“As Dinah was a-walking in her garden one day, Her father came to her and thus he did say: ‘Come wed yourself, Dinah, to your nearest of kin, Or you shan’t have the benefit of one single pin!’”
“Ri tooral ri too—”
Here Mr. Jenkins, chancing to catch sight of that unobtrusive figure, let fall his banjo with a clatter, whereupon Mr. Brimberly glancing around, stopped short in the middle of a note, and sat open-mouthed, staring at his master.
“Enjoying a musical evening, Brimberly?”
Mr. Brimberly blundered to his feet, choked, gasped, groped for his whiskers, and finally spoke:
“Why, sir, I—I’m afraid I—we are—”
“I didn’t know you were such an accomplished musician, Brimberly.”
“Mu-musician, sir?” Brimberly stammered, his eyes goggling; “‘ardly that, sir, oh, ‘ardly that, I—I venture to—to tinkle a bit now an’ then, sir—no offence I ‘ope, sir?”
“Friends musical too, it seems.”
“Y-yes, sir, music do affect ‘em, sir—uncommonly, sir.”
“Yes, makes them thirsty, doesn’t it?”
“Why, Mr. Ravenslee, sir, I—that is, we did so far venture to—er—I mean—oh, Lord!” and mopping perspiring brow, Mr. Brimberly groaned and goggled helplessly from Mr. Jenkins who stood fumbling with his banjo to Mr. Stevens who gaped fishlike.
“And now,” said Young R., having viewed them each in turn, “if these—er—very thirsty musicians have had enough of—er—my wine to—er—drink, perhaps you’ll be so obliging as to see them—off the premises?”
