The picture which forms our frontispiece shows Tom Pinch playing his favourite instrument. At the sale of the original drawings executed by 'Phiz' for _Martin Chuzzlewit_ this frontispiece, which is an epitome of the salient characters and scenes in the novel, was sold for L35. We read in _Christmas Stories_ that Silas Jorgan Played the organ, but we are not told the name of the artist who at the concert at the Eagle (_S.B.C._ 4) accompanied a comic song on the organ--and such an organ! Miss J'mima Ivins's friend's young man whispered it had cost 'four hundred pound,' which Mr. Samuel Wilkins said was 'not dear neither.' The singer was probably either Howell or Glindon. Dickens appears to have visited the Eagle Tavern in 1835 or 1836. It was then a notable place of entertainment consisting of gardens with an orchestra, and the 'Grecian Saloon,' which was furnished with an organ and a 'self-acting piano.' Here concerts were given every evening, which in Lent took a sacred turn, and consisted of selections from Handel and Mozart. In 1837 the organ was removed, and a new one erected by Parsons. The Eagle gained a wide reputation through its being introduced into a once popular song. Up and down the City Road, In and out the Eagle, That's the way the money goes, Pop goes the weasel. This verse was subsequently modified (for nursery purposes) thus: Half a pound of tuppenny rice, Half a pound of treacle, That's the way the money goes,[9] Pop goes the weasel. Many explanations have been given of 'weasel.' Some say it was a purse made of weasel skin; others that it was a tailor's flat-iron which used to be pawned (or 'popped') to procure the needful for admission to the tavern. A third (and more intelligible) suggestion is that the line is simply a catch phrase, without any meaning. There is a notable reference to the organ in _Little Dorrit_. Arthur Clennam goes to call on old Frederick Dorrit, the clarionet player, and is directed to the house where he lived. 'There were so many lodgers in this house that the door-post seemed to be as full of bell handles as a cathedral organ is of stops,' and Clennam hesitates for a time, 'doubtful which might be the clarionet stop.' Further on in the same novel we are told that it was the organ that Mrs. Finching was desirous of learning. I have said ever since I began to recover the blow of Mr. F's death that I would learn the organ of which I am extremely fond but of which I am ashamed to say I do not yet know a note. The following fine description of the tones of an organ occurs in _The Chimes_: