Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/174

154 and enlightened principles, but it was also an evidence of what might be done by perseverance and instruction. It was composed of the warders of the institution, who, notwithstanding that their hours of practice were necessarily limited, had, under the judicious tuition of their bandmaster, become most efficient performers. The band played at the Asylum on certain evenings in each week; and, on Friday evenings, the patients had a dance. Dr. Plimmer assured Mr. Smalls that the introduction of music and dancing into the institution had been marked with the most beneficial results. The drummer was one of the patients; while another stood near, and with perfect gravity, held his hands up to his face, and, with voice and action, imitated the sound and playing of a trumpet.

"He is one of our most harmless and quiet people," said Dr. Plimmer; "but, one of his notions is, that his nose is a trumpet."

"It is to be feared," observed the Squire, "that many of those who are accounted sane, while they certainly blow their own noses, yet do not blow their own trumpet in such a harmless fashion."

The band struck up a country dance; and, to the lively measure of its music, the majority of the patients were soon tripping, their nurses and attendants mixing with them. The females appeared to prefer dancing with each other; and so, for the matter of that, did the males, unless they danced by themselves, as some eccentric persons preferred to do. So much had the pleasure of the day been anticipated, said Dr. Plimmer, that the patients had devoted the previous evening to unceasing "ball practice" and the preparation of polkas for the next day's performance; and they certainly proved