. Programme . 676 FIFTEEN years ago we received aletter asking for important servicesdecorative in a Summer house beforeits ow^ner arrived. The letter concluded:Send dear old Mike. Through succeeding years the personal ele-ment in our staff of workmen and house decoratorshas maintained its importance. Frequent requestsare made for the services of some one man. Only a few days ago a retired Boston mer-chant wrote us from his country home, requestingthat we see to carpeting some stairways in histown house prior to his return from the country. He did not ask us to send dear old Mike,of course, bu
. Programme . 676 FIFTEEN years ago we received aletter asking for important servicesdecorative in a Summer house beforeits ow^ner arrived. The letter concluded:Send dear old Mike. Through succeeding years the personal ele-ment in our staff of workmen and house decoratorshas maintained its importance. Frequent requestsare made for the services of some one man. Only a few days ago a retired Boston mer-chant wrote us from his country home, requestingthat we see to carpeting some stairways in histown house prior to his return from the country. He did not ask us to send dear old Mike,of course, but he named his man—and he got him! The personality of the Pray staff is one ofthe best fruits of 677 in fact, the breaking of the old consort which broke them up. Yes/said one of these vanished minstrels, they should ha stuck to brass-man is brass, well and good; your reed-man is reed, welland good; your percussion-man is percussion, good again. But Idont care who hears me say it, nothing will speak to your heart withthe sweetness of the man of strings, Was this lingering affection forstringed music, after all, but the call of the blood? The call of thosefar-off days, when to the quivering chords of the crot the British bardschanted our countrys fame, and Saxon minstrels swept the trembhngstrings of their harps as with prophetic fire they sang the glories of anEngland yet to be. Baileys Dictionary (1736) gives this singular definition: Serpent,a kind of musical instrument, serving as a bass to the Cornet or smallShawm, to sustain a chorus of singers in a large vessel. In orchestras the ophicleide succeeded the serpent; the bass-tuba,the ophicleide. Lavoix the Younger
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