He is a favourite subject with the young artists about
town, especially if he is very good-looking, or, better still,
excessively ugly; and he picks up many a shilling for sitting,
standing, or sprawling on the ground, as a model in the studio. It
sometimes happens that he has no organ--his monkey being his only
stock in trade. When the monkey dies--and one sees by their melancholy
comicalities, and cautious and painful grimaces, that the poor brutes
are destined to a short time of it--he takes up with white mice, or,
lacking these, constructs a dancing-doll, which, with the aid of a
short plank with an upright at one end, to which is attached a cord
passing through the body of the doll, and fastened to his right leg,
he keeps constantly on the jig, to the music of a tuneless
tin-whistle, bought for a penny, and a very primitive parchment tabor,
manufactured by himself. These shifts he resorts to in the hope of
retaining his independence and personal freedom--failing to succeed in
which, he is driven, as a last resource, to the comfortless drudgery
of piano-grinding, which we shall have to notice in its turn.
3. The handbarrow-organist is not uncommonly some lazy Irishman, if he
be not a sickly Savoyard, who has mounted his organ upon a handbarrow
of light and somewhat peculiar construction, for the sake of
facilitating the task of locomotion.
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