This was one of the only four tunes he knew. You may readily guess the rest. He always played them through, one after the other, in never-varying order. Charlie, he’s my darling--the Arethusa--Sally in our Alley and Come Lasses and Lads. He was a ballad-monger. He looked a ballad-monger--only he was a ballad-monger on the clarionet. John Leech has drawn him over and over again in the long ago pages of Punch; drawn him with his baggy trousers that crease where they were never intended to, with his faded black frock coat that was never cut for the shoulders it adorned, with every article of clothing, which the picture told you he would wear to the end of his days, inherited from a generous charity that had only disposed of its gifts in the last moments of decay. "Oh, Charlie, he’s my darling, my darling, my darling--" He brought such a minor tone into it all; it might have been a dirge. It was as he sang it. For these ballad-mongers are sad creatures. Theirs is a hard, a miserable life, and it all comes out in their music. The unhappy individual with a musical instrument who stands on the curbstone in the pouring rain can find some depressing note to dwell on in the liveliest of tunes. Art is most times only the cry of the individual. When the clarionet player began, John shut up his book, rose from his chair, and went to the window. The windows wanted cleaning. It only costs a shilling for four windows--the difficulty is sometimes to find the man to do it--more often the difficulty is to find the shilling. There is generally a man at the first street corner, but never a coin of the realm. Someone threw a penny into the street from an upper window. The music stopped with a jerk. The ballad-monger chased the rolling coin to the very edge of a drain, then stood erect with a red and grateful face. He licked his lips, put the penny in his pocket and began again. That penny had insured another five minutes at least. The sun was burning down into the street. John got his hat, picked up his book and went downstairs. Kensington Gardens was the only place left in the world. Outside, he passed the ballad-monger as he was shaking the moisture out of his reed. No wonder it is a thirsty business, this playing on the clarionet. John was not in the mood to appreciate that very necessary clearing of the instrument. At that moment all ballad-mongers were unnecessary, and their habits loathsome. He stopped. "Do you know no other tunes," he asked, "than those four you play here every Friday?" "No, sir." His voice was very deferential and as sad as his music. "Well--don’t you imagine we must all be very tired of them?" "I often think that, sir. I often think that. But you only hear them every Friday." "You mean you hear them every day of the week?" "That is what I mean, sir."