'You must do something with it,' said my Artemisia--an
excellent housewife, gentlemen, who wasted nothing if she could help
it. I remember her giving me the same advice about an astrolabe, and
again about a sun-dial corrected for the meridian of Bury St.
Edmunds. 'My dear,' I answered, 'there is but one thing to be done
with a flute, and that is to learn it.' In this way I discovered
what I will go no further than to describe as my Bent."
Mr. Badcock put the flute to his lips and blew into it. A tune
resulted.
"But," persisted Billy Priske, after a dozen bars or so, "the latest
thing to be mentioned was my appetite: and 'tis wonderful to me how
you gentlemen are letting the conversation stray, this afternoon."
"The worst of a flute," said Mr. Badcock, withdrawing it from his
lips with obvious reluctance, "and the objection commonly urged by
its detractors, is that a man cannot blow upon it and sing at the
same time."
"I don't say," said Billy, seriously, "as that mayn't be a reas'nable
objection; only it didn't happen to be mine."
"You have heard the tune," said Mr.
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