‘Mr. Vandeleur,’ said Stammers briskly. ‘Let him the best piano I have—a brand-new Collard—at thirty shillings a month, bein’, as it was, a short let. And wonderful it was to hear him play upon it, too! I’ve stood on the staircase at the George half an hour at a stretch, listenin’ to him.’ ‘A fine musician?’ inquired the Rector, with another sigh. Fatal music, deadly art! ‘Fine isn’t the word, sir. There’s a many fine musicians, as far as pianoforte playing goes,’ with a little conscious air of inward swelling, as of a man who numbered himself among these gifted ones. ‘I don’t think there’s anythink of Mozart’s, or ’Andels, or ’Aydn’s, or Beethoven’s—that’s the king of ’em all, is Beethoven—you could put a name to that I wouldn’t play at sight; but I don’t rank myself with Mr. Vandeleur, the gentleman at the George, for all that.’ ‘What is the difference?’ Mr. Stammers tapped his forehead. ‘There, sir; there’s where the difference lies. I ’aven’t ’is ’ead. Not but what I had a taste for music when I was that ’igh,’ indicating the altitude of a foot and a half from the floor, ‘and was took notice of by the gentry of these parts in consequence, my father bein’, as you are aware, sir, a numble carpenter. But I ’aven’t the ’ead that man ’as. To hear him ’andle Beethoven, sir, the Sonater Pathetick, or the “Moonlight,” wonderful! And not that alone. There was sonaters and fugues he played, sir—whether they was his own composition or wasn’t, I can’t say; but they were fugues and sonaters I never heard before, and I don’t believe mortal man ever wrote ’em. They outraged all the laws of ’armony, sir. Why, there was consecutive fifths in ’em as thick as gooseberries, and yet they was as fine as anythink in Mozart. Such music! It turned one’s blood cold to hear him. If you could fancy the old gentleman playing the piano—which, bein’ a clergyman, of course you wouldn’t give your mind to—you could fancy him playing like that.’ ‘An eccentric style?’ inquired the Rector. ‘Eccentric! It was the topsy-turviest kind of thing I ever heard in my life. Yet if that man was to play in public, he’d take the town by storm; they’d run after him like mad.’ ‘Do you think he is a professional performer?’ ‘Hardly; he hadn’t the professional way with him. I’ve seen plenty of the profession, havin’ managed for all the concerts that have been given in Wykhamston for the last twenty years. No; and a professional wouldn’t dawdle away close upon six weeks in a small country town such as this. No; what I take him for is a wealthy amateur—a gentleman that had been living a little too fast up in London, and come down here to freshen himself up a bit with country air and quiet.’ ‘How did he spend his time?’ ‘In the church, a good bit of it, playing the organ. He used to get the keys from old Bopolt, the clerk. I wonder you didn’t hear of it, sir.’