Two words that by themselves have a musical meaning are 'Chaunter' and 'Drums'; but the Chaunter referred to is one of Edward Dorrit's creditors, and the word means 'not a singer of anthems, but a seller of horses.' To this profession also Simpson belonged, on whom Mr. Pickwick was 'chummed' in the Fleet prison. A 'drum' is referred to in the description of the London streets at night in _Barnaby Rudge_, and signifies a rout or evening party for cards; while one where stakes ran high and much noise accompanied the play was known as a 'drum major.'
In _Our Bore_ (_R.P._) this sentence occurs:
He was at the Norwich musical festival when the extraordinary echo, for which science has been wholly unable to account, was heard for the first and last time. He and the bishop heard it at the same moment, and caught each other's eye.
Dr. A.H. Mann, who knows as much about Norwich and its festivals as any one, is quite unable to throw any light on this mystic remark. There were complaints about the acoustics of the St. Andrew's Hall many years ago, but there appears to be no historic foundation for Dickens' reference. It would certainly be interesting to know what suggested the idea to him.
There is a curious incident connected with Uncle Dick, whose great ambition was 'to beat the drum.' It was only by a mere chance that his celebrated reference to King Charles's head got into the story. Dickens originally wrote as follows (in Chapter 14, _D.C._):
'Do you recollect the date,' said Mr. Dick, looking earnestly at me, and taking up his pen to note it down, 'when the bull got into the china warehouse and did so much mischief?'
In the proof Dickens struck out all the words after 'when,' and inserted in their place the following:
'King Charles the First had his head cut off?'
I said I believed it happened in the year sixteen hundred and forty-nine.
'Well,' returned Mr. Dick, scratching his ear with his pen and looking dubiously at me, 'so the books say, but I don't see how that can be. Because if it was so long ago, how could the people about him have made that mistake of putting some of the trouble out of his head, after it was taken off, into mine?'
The whole of the substituted passage is inserted in the margin at the bottom of the page. Again, when Mr. Dick shows David Copperfield his kite covered with manuscript, David was made to say in the proof: 'I thought I saw some allusion to the bull again in one or two places.' Here Dickens has struck through the words, 'the bull,' and replaced them with 'King Charles the First's head.'