SPITTING OUT BAGPIPE EFFECT 



after all, little removed from a penny whistle if you play 

 it staccato ! I asserted that it was practically impos- 

 sible to give any rendering of Handel's gloomy master- 

 piece, but he became so insistent that I had a go. 

 How to get it sufficiently sonorous was a licker, but 

 by means of a sort of droning to myself and spitting 

 down the pipe I got as near as possible to an imitation 

 of the bagpipes, and over the still waters, with the 

 man in the moon laughing at me and the man at the 

 wheel thinking us mad, and the Belfast skipper 

 listening intently, the " Dead March " was played, 

 under circumstances which, I should think, have never 

 before existed in the world, or are ever likely to. I 

 am not writing this to make you laugh, and I am not 

 romancing. 



109 



