their temporary discomfiture, and perhaps no one ever hummed
under more harassing circumstances than when Mr. Pecksniff had
to go to the door to let in some very unwelcome guests, who
had already knocked several times. But he was a past master
in the art of dissimulation. He is particularly anxious to
conceal from his visitors the fact that Jonas Chuzzlewit is
in the house. So he says to the latter--

'This may be a professional call. Indeed I am pretty
sure it is. Thank you.' Then Mr. Pecksniff, gently
warbling a rustic stave, put on his garden hat, seized
a spade, and opened the street door; calmly appearing
on the threshold as if he thought he had, from his
vineyard, heard a modest rap, but was not quite certain.

Then he tells his visitors 'I do a little bit of Adam still.'
He certainly had a good deal of the old Adam in him.


_Clarionet_

The clarionet is associated with the fortunes of Mr. Frederick
Dorrit, who played the instrument at the theatre where his
elder niece was a dancer, and where Little Dorrit sought an
engagement. After the rehearsal was over she and her sister
went to take him home.

He had been in that place six nights a week for many
years, but had never been observed to raise his eyes
above his music-book.... The carpenters had a joke