But the orchestra was returning, the musicians crawling out one by one from a little door beneath the stage hardly bigger than the entrance of a rabbit hutch. They settled themselves in front of their racks, adjusting their coattails, fingering their sheet music. Soon they began to tune up, and a vague bourdon of many sounds⁠—the subdued snarl of the cornets, the dull mutter of the bass viols, the liquid gurgling of the flageolets and woodwind instruments, now and then pierced by the strident chirps and cries of the violins, rose into the air dominating the incessant clamour of conversation that came from all parts of the theatre.