Q-241110

“Ef you don’t like my music, git out your fiddle. I ain’t goin’ to lie here all day an’ listen to you an’ Long Jack arguin’ ’baout candles. Fiddle, Tom Platt; or I’ll learn Harve here the tune!”
Tom Platt leaned down to a locker and brought up an old white fiddle. Manuel’s eye glistened, and from somewhere behind the pawl-post he drew out a tiny, guitar-like thing with wire strings, which he called a machette.
“’Tis a concert,” said Long Jack, beaming through the smoke. “A reg’lar Boston concert.”

This is from Chapter 4 of Kipling’s 3rd novel Captains Courageous which is set amid the hardships endured by deep sea fishermen.

Harve has been swept overboard from a passing liner and miraculously plucked from the ocean by Manuel. He is now experiencing a completely different lifestyle to his previous “multi-millionaire’s son” one.