Speed was not a particularly good organist, and it was only reluctantly that he undertook Raggs' duty for him. For one thing, he was always slightly nervous of doing things in public. And for another thing, he would have to practice a great deal in order to prepare himself for the occasion, and he had neither the time nor the inclination for hours of practice. However, when the Head said: "I know I can--um, yes--rely upon you, Mr. Speed," Speed knew that there was no way out of it. Besides, he was feeling his way in the school with marvellous ease and accuracy, and each new duty undertaken by special request increased and improved his prestige. After a few days' trial he found it was rather pleasant to climb the ladder to the organ-loft amid the rich cool dusk of the chapel, switch on the buzzing motor that operated the electric power, and play, not only Chopin's Funeral March but anything else he liked. Often he would merely improvise, beginning with a simple theme announced on single notes, and broadening and loudening into climax. Always as he played he could see the shafts of sunlight falling amidst the dusty pews, the many-coloured glitter of the stained-glass in the oriel window, and in an opaque haze in the distance the white cavern of the chapel entrance beyond which all was light and sunshine. The whole effect, serene and tranquillising, hardly stirred him to any distinctly religious emotion, but it set up in him acutely that emotional sensitiveness to things secret and unseen, that insurgent consciousness, clear as the sky, yet impossible to translate into words, of deep wells of meaning beneath all the froth and commotion of his five passionate senses.