Nothing more dismal could have been desired by the most fastidious taste.

The gentleman of a vocal turn was head mute, or chief mourner; Jinkins took the bass; and the rest took anything they could get.

The youngest gentleman blew his melancholy into a flute.

He didn't blow much out of it, but that was all the better.
If the two Miss Pecksniffs and Mrs Todgers had perished by spontaneous combustion, and the serenade had been in honour of their ashes, it would have been impossible to surpass the unutterable despair expressed in that one chorus, 'Go where glory waits thee!' It was a requiem, a dirge, a moan, a howl, a wail, a lament, an abstract of everything that is sorrowful and hideous in sound.

The flute of the youngest gentleman was wild and fitful.