At a subsequent stage of the proceedings they were asked to play, and after replacing a broken string, and a vast deal of screwing and tightening, they gave 'a new Spanish composition, for three voices and three guitars,' and secured an encore, thus completely overwhelming their rivals. In the account of the _French Watering-Place_ (_R.P._) we read about a guitar on the pier, 'to which a boy or woman sings without any voice little songs without any tune.' On one of his night excursions in the guise of an 'Uncommercial Traveller' Dickens discovered a stranded Spaniard, named Antonio. In response to a general invitation 'the swarthy youth' takes up his cracked guitar and gives them the 'feeblest ghost of a tune,' while the inmates of the miserable den kept time with their heads. Dora used to delight David Copperfield by singing enchanting ballads in the French language and accompanying herself 'on a glorified instrument, resembling a guitar,' though subsequent references show it was that instrument and none other. We read in _Little Dorrit_ that Young John Chivery wore 'pantaloons so highly decorated with side stripes, that each leg was a three-stringed lute.' This appears to be the only reference to this instrument, and a lute of three strings is the novelist's own conception, the usual number being about nine. [9] Or, 'Mix it up and make it nice.' [10] _The Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble_, 1837. CHAPTER IV VARIOUS INSTRUMENTS (continued) Many musical instruments and terms are mentioned by way of illustration. Blathers, the Bow Street officer (_O.T._), plays carelessly with his handcuffs as if they were a pair of castanets. Miss Miggs (_B.R._) clanks her pattens as if they were a pair of cymbals. Mr. Bounderby (_H.T._), during his conversation with Harthouse, with his hat in his hand, gave a beat upon the crown at every division of his sentences, as if it were a tambourine; and in the same work the electric wires rule 'a colossal strip of music-paper out of the evening sky.' Perhaps the most extraordinary comparison is that instituted by Mrs. Lirriper in reference to her late husband. My poor Lirriper was a handsome figure of a man, with a beaming eye and a voice as mellow as a musical instrument made of honey and steel. What a vivid imagination the good woman had! Her descriptive powers remind us of those possessed by Mrs. Gamp in speaking of the father of the mysterious Mrs. Harris. As pleasant a singer, Mr. Chuzzlewit, as ever you heerd, with a voice like a Jew's-harp in the bass notes. There are many humorous references to remarkable performances on various instruments more or less musical in their nature. During the election at Eatanswill the crier performed two concertos on his bell, and shortly afterwards followed them up with a fantasia on the same instrument. Dickens suffered much from church bells, and gives vent to his feelings about them in _Little Dorrit_, where he says that