These variations of the Christian names of the sacred band were, as before said, common to the town, where every man was a Dicky, or a Tommy, or a Joey, or the like, and generally with an "Owd" before it. The clergyman our vicar succeeded was the Reverend James Bannister, but he was always known as "Owd Jemmy," and it was a matter of regret to the popular wits of the place that the Reverend Murray Selwood's name offered no hold for the ingenious to nickname, so they settled down to "Owd Parson," and so he was called. But to return to the choir. They sat in a gallery that crossed the western end of the church, and on Sundays such of them as put in an appearance had it, with the singers and the schoolchildren, all to themselves; and let it not be supposed that the preponderance of bass was noticeable, for it was pretty well drowned by the shrill treble, as the musicians did not get much music out of their instruments, save and excepting Billy Stokes, who always seemed to be dying in agonies, such wails did he send forth in "Portugal," "Hanover," and "Old Hundredth," that it took all the efforts of the basses to smother his piercing cries. The bells, pulled for a treat by five boys under the direction of Jacky Budd, had had their say; the musicians had blundered and clumped up the dark staircase to their seats, and Trappy Pape was working away with his bow upon a large cake of rosin, while Joey Tight, as he was more generally called, was sucking his brass pipe, and conning over the notes he had known for fifty years, to the great admiration of the schoolboys, one and all longing to "have a blow at that theer big black thing." The "tingtang" which went for ten minutes in a cracked, doleful, sheep-bell style, was being pulled, and the vicar was standing in his surplice, waiting for the clock to strike--which it would do sometimes with tolerable accuracy--and he was thinking of how he should like to move the people to have something done by way of restoration to the church, when Jacky Budd, with one thumb in his arm-hole, came slinking softly up to try and get a bit of whispered conversation with the parson. "Strange great congregation this morning, sir," he whispered. "Indeed, Budd," said the vicar, brightening. "I'm glad of that." "I counted 'em, sir--there's two-and-forty." "Forty-two, Budd," said the vicar, with his countenance falling; "and the church holds seven hundred." "Two-and-forty, sir, wi'out the schoolchildren." "But you counted the singers, Budd?" "No, sir, I didn't; two-and-forty wi'out." "Ah, Budd, it's very sad," said the vicar, sighing. "I hoped for better things by now." "Why, we never used to hev such congregations in the owd vicar's time, sir, as we do wi' you. We never used to hev more than five-and-twenty o' wet Sundays, and I hev know'd him preach to six." "Hah!" A long sigh and a mental question, "What can I do to bring them here?" as Jacky Budd shuffled as far as the door and back.