The five entered in grand commotion: identical dwarf twins rolled arsey-varsey in the midst of an altercation blessedly bereft of any weaponry. The tallest - and ugliest - woman I had ever seen in my life followed them in, dressed in patched gingham and a ludicrous mob-cap which flopped around her jowls as though melting. She preceded a man of vast girth, who had apparently been quite unable to acquire any apparel which might enclose his improbable dimensions. Pallid and suety flesh emerged from every ill met hem and fastening. At the last came a man of middling height but extreme thinness, dressed in the black serge and ribbons of the professional mourner, so that I half-expected the feathered horses of hearse to come in behind him. Each and every one of the five wore the expressionist, and purportedly comical, theatrical make-up that I had learned was called 'black-face'. Turning to Cattermole, I saw him give a shudder and take a mighty draught of the dreadful spirit. Behind him, Cletus Camborne's crouch-back shoulders shook in silent and malicious laughter.
Cattermole directed Camborne to usher the troupe to the ad-hoc stage at the far end of the salon. The dwarves somersaulted away as though a pair of Siamese United Twins, though conjoined topsy-turvy. I wondered if this whirling battle was some long dispute or merely their accustomed mode of perambulation. Sir Garrick Cattermole looked after them, his eyes glistening and I turned away to leave him to his sentiment.
Whiskey in hand I made shift to a hap-hazardly arranged row of chairs before the jury-rigged stage. One heavy-jowled fellow was slumped in a chair, legs stretched out before him, mouth open and emitting noises of which a Wessex Saddleback in rut would have been justly proud. In the remaining seat sat a familiar figure. I did not address her for fear of provoking the disproportionate reaction she had earlier evinced. Besides this time she was not alone. A matronly figure of some fifty years sat beside her, hands clasping a voluminous bag. She was speaking at Miss Shepherd, rather than to or with her, and the young woman's gaze was held downward in a most submissive manner, her very occasional replies restricted to 'Yes'm' or 'No'm' and it all probability 'three bags full'm'. I took a seat, leaving one free between myself and Miss Shepherd and her mistress.
At one side of the stage, Cletus Camborne sat before an instrument of keyboard type, so small as to seem designed for a child. It seemed that it could encompass no more than an octave or two in range. Camborne sat most cramped before it, pumping fiercely at some bellows with knees scarcely escaping painful barking against the underside of the keyboard itself. Presently, he lifted an arm with a flourish and attempted to coax a noise from it. If it were the lost chord which he had found, I could not have been more surprised by the noise which ensued from the instrument. It might have been an unusually diminished fifth, or perhaps an unexpectedly augmented fourth. Then again it was not impossible that the depression of the keys had resulted in the strangling of a pair of cockerels confined within the shell of the instrument. Camborne seemed satisfied with the outcome, in any event, he refrained from any further exercise or rehearsal. Never was an instrument less aptly named the Harmonium, in my opinion.
