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The dazzled community, gazing spell-bound upon the spectacle of a flower-decked mansion, brilliant with colored lights and echoing to bewildering strains of music, is apt to forget, in this aggregation of the energies of florist, caterer, and band-master, the one man who is supposed to be, but is not, the author of this occasion. Montague "Ah! yes; and how did 'mine host' bear himself?"
They passed through the crowd waiting to see the yachts start. They got on board the steamer; and at the very instant that Macleod stepped from the gangway on to the deck, the military band on board, by some strange coincidence, struck up "A Highland lad my love was born." Mrs. Ross laughed, and wondered whether the band-master had recognized her husband.
"He has sent word to the mayor and council that he is going to have the organ installed in Barclay Hall this week at his own expense, and he accompanied the letter with fifty thousand dollars in securities to hire a permanent organist and a band-master for the band; and a band concert and an organ concert will alternate in the hall every week during the year.
Sam was too enraged to say more than his usual exclamation of astonishment, "Golly!" and he held out his drumsticks to be examined with the face of a black statue of surprise. Even the band-master was obliged to laugh as he took the sticks from Sam's hand to examine them. "These are not your sticks at all, Sam," he said, looking closely at them.
Your man was most particular to stipulate the pink and blue flowered brocades, next the Prince of Wales's." "But you must have the band stop that piece, Mr. Tyers," cried Lady Sarah. "I declare, it is too much for my nerves. Let them play Dibbin's Ephesian Matron." "As your Ladyship wishes," responded the obliging Mr. Tyers, and sent off an uniformed warder to the band-master.
He was stage director, very often stage carpenter, scene arranger, property man, prompter, and band-master. Without offending any one, he kept every one in order.
It was not difficult to tear ourselves away from the fonda; for it became less easy to tolerate the proximity of the old Spanish band-master, with his bad tobacco and long-winded stories; nor were our landlady and family over-refined. We had not come to Morocco to live amongst the scum of Spain: could Tetuan be swept clean of the Spanish element, it were better for it.
The band-master wrote twenty-five volumes about the wonderful artificial bird. The book was very learned and very long, filled with the most difficult words in the Chinese language, and everybody said they had read and understood it, for otherwise they would have been considered stupid, and would have been trampled upon. And thus a whole year passed away.
One of Strauss's waltzes, or Schubert's melodies played on the piano by the band-master completed the illusion; and yet we had only to rub off the thin incrustation of frozen vapour that covered the panes of the windows, to look out upon the gigantic and terrible forms of the icebergs dashed against each other by a black and broken sea, and the whole panorama of Polar nature, its awful risks, and its sinister splendours.
It was composed of a number of young gentlemen, members of the most influential families of the city. Wallace, band-master of H. M. 52nd regiment, took an active part in instructing these youths, who, within a short period, had acquired such proficiency as to enable them to give a series of entertainments in Hooper's Hotel. These consisted of selections displaying musical skill, ability and taste.
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