Linking the present to the past were the names of by-gone choristers, carved in schoolboy fashion upon the old oak panels, who had sung their last note a hundred years ago—it might be in this very gallery. It was easy to picture them passing and re-passing still through the trap door which opened at our feet—a white robed procession of the voiceless dead. An organ loft is a delightfully irresponsible place from which to take part in a service, especially when the instrument is a large one, well removed from the congregation on the top of a screen—above all, when you do not happen to be the organist. I would not for an instant be understood to imply that the sense of aloofness necessarily engenders irreverence. On the contrary, many of the most solemn hours of my life were passed within the recesses of the great organ at K., and my friend the organist might have been a pattern to the congregation in true devotional spirit. But the necessities imposed by a choral service afforded him little opportunity for a devotional attitude, while he would have been more, or less, than human if he had not utilised our isolation to impart to me pleasant little details regarding the progress of the service. These would be interrupted at intervals by parenthetical instructions whenever he wanted help in the management of his stops. A reminiscence of an organ-loft monologue would read something as follows: “_Draw the Gamba_, _please_. How flat that boy Robinson’s singing; and oh! those _h_’s of his! _Principal_, _please_, _and now the mixtures_. Green’s getting shaky in his top notes; he only looked at that upper G. _Take care_; _you put in that coupler before I had finished the bar_. What a nuisance it is! I shall never get a boy like him . . . The finest hymn written, don’t you think? (They were singing Stainer’s ‘Saints of God’) . . . and ‘Aurelia’ is the second best. (Well done! Joseph, I thought; you’re in it after all.) Get me Wely’s Offertoire in G, will you? It’s poor stuff, but the people will have it. _The Oboe_, _please_, _for the air_ . . . And now for the scramble . . . _Turn over in good time_; _I can see ahead of me_, _but I can’t see through the page_.” And he dashed into the finale at the hurricane pace that alone makes the thing endurable. Even he couldn’t talk till it was done. Sometimes we were interested in events that were proceeding in the world beneath us. “What on earth’s the man reading the fifteenth for? it’s the sixteenth that’s the lesson for the day.” “Oh, it’s Henderson,” would be my reply. “He always chooses a fine chapter to show off his voice and elocution. If he’s hauled up for it, he’ll say he did it by mistake.” On one occasion we were favoured by a reader, fresh from the study of Aristophanes, with the startling announcement that the First Lesson for the day was taken from the Book of _Ecclesiazusae_.