This genuine musician, on finding that every sort of art interested me a good deal, became very friendly and was so good as to ask me to go to his church one Sunday and hear him play, and have dinner with him afterwards. It was a great compliment, and of course I went and was deeply impressed to see the amazing ease with which Wardle, in surplice and cassock, handled his organ and managed the pedals and pulled out stops, and turned over the music and played psalms and hymns and responses and so on,—all with unfailing success. During the collection the hymn came to an end too soon, and doubtless, with a less complete master of harmony than Wardle, an awkward pause would have ensued; but, with a nerve begot of long practice, he permitted his fingers to stray over the “Ivories,” as they call them, and his feet to stray over the pedals, with a result both rich and harmonious. A solemn melody reverberated through the aisles and rolled from the instrument, and entirely concealed the mean sound of pennies and threepenny pieces falling into the collecting dishes. I praised this feat warmly after the service and Wardle was gratified that I had noticed it. Then I asked him why he did not commit such an improvisation to paper, so that it should not be lost, and he laughed and said: “Why, it was a music-hall tune: ‘_Father’s teeth are stopped with zinc!_’” He explained, to my great astonishment, that if you alter the time and the general hang of a tune, and play it with all the solemn notes and deep stops and flourishes of an organ, the most skillful ear is deceived. It was only another tribute to the man’s amazing cleverness; but somehow I felt disappointed that he should have done this thing. It seemed unworthy of him. He had a piano of his own, secured on the hire system; and upon this instrument, after dinner, he played me a great deal of his own music, including many of the numbers from a beautiful fairy opera that he had written with a friend—the words being by the friend. “The libretto is footle,” confessed Wardle; “but if I could only get a libretto worth talking about, I should surprise some of us.” I told him that he had already surprised me; but, of course, he meant the outer world of opera-goers and enthusiasts of music, who abound in London, and are to be seen thronging the great concert halls by night. Another man of exceptional genius was Bassett—a volunteer and a crack shot. He belonged to the Artists’ Corps and was, you might say, every inch a soldier, in the complete disguise of an insurance clerk.