Page:The Innocents Abroad (1869).djvu/59

Rh it was in a rather quiet way. We very, very seldom played the piano; we played the flute and the clarinet together, and made good music, too, what there was of it, but we always played the same old tune; it was a very pretty tune—how well I remember it—I wonder when I shall ever get rid of it. We never played either the melodeon or the organ except at devotions—but I am too fast: young Albert did know part of a tune—something about “O Something-Or-Other How Sweet it is to Know that he’s his What’s-his-Name,” (I do not remember the exact title of it, but it was very plaintive, and full of sentiment;) Albert played that pretty much all the time, until we contracted with him to restrain himself. But nobody ever sang by moonlight on the upper deck, and the congregational singing at church and prayers was not of a superior order of architecture. I put up with it as long as I could, and then joined in and tried to improve it, but this encouraged young George to join in too, and that made a failure of it; because George’s voice was just “turning,” and when he was singing a dismal sort of base, it was apt to fly off the handle and startle every body with a most discordant cackle on the upper notes. George didn’t know the tunes, either, which was also a drawback to his performances. I said:

“Come, now, George, don’t improvise. It looks too egotistical. It will provoke remark. Just stick to ‘Coronation,’ like the others. It is a good tune—you can’t improve it any, just off-hand, in this way.”

“Why, I’m not trying to improve it—and I am singing like the others—just as it is in the notes.”

And he honestly thought he was, too; and so he had no one to blame but himself when his voice caught on the centre occasionally, and gave him the lockjaw.

There were those among the unregenerated who attributed the unceasing head-winds to our distressing choir-music. There were those who said openly that it was taking chances enough to have such ghastly music going on, even when it was at its best; and that to exaggerate the crime by letting George help, was simply flying in the face of Providence. These said that