"I _don't_ admire these complicated pieces of music," said George Harringay. "I have simple tastes, I'm afraid. There seems to me no _tune_ in it. There's nothing I like so much as simple music. Tune, simplicity is the need of the age, in my opinion. We are so over subtle. Everything is far-fetched. Home grown thoughts and 'Home, Sweet Home' for me. What do you think?" "Oh! I think so--_quite_," said the younger Miss Pirbright. "Well, Amy, chattering to George as usual?" said Mrs Pirbright, across the room. "As usual, Ma!" said the younger Miss Pirbright, glancing round with a bright smile at Miss Papaver, and turning again so as not to lose the next utterance from George. "I wonder if you and Mr Angel could manage a duet?" said Lady Hammergallow to the Curate from Iping Hanger, who was looking preternaturally gloomy. "I'm sure I should be delighted," said the Curate from Iping Hanger, brightening up. "Duets!" said the Angel; "the two of us. Then he can play. I understood--the Vicar told me--" "Mr Wilmerdings is an accomplished pianist," interrupted the Vicar. "But the Imitations?" said Mrs Jehoram, who detested Wilmerdings. "Imitations!" said the Angel. "A pig squeaking, a cock crowing, you know," said Mr Rathbone-Slater, and added lower, "Best fun you can get out of a fiddle--_my_ opinion." "I really don't understand," said the Angel. "A pig crowing!" "You don't like Imitations," said Mrs Jehoram. "Nor do I--really. I accept the snub. I think they degrade...." "Perhaps afterwards Mr Angel will Relent," said Lady Hammergallow, when Mrs Pirbright had explained the matter to her. She could scarcely credit her ear-trumpet. When she asked for Imitations she was accustomed to get Imitations. Mr Wilmerdings had seated himself at the piano, and had turned to a familiar pile of music in the recess. "What do you think of that Barcarole thing of Spohr's?" he said over his shoulder. "I suppose you know it?" The Angel looked bewildered. He opened the folio before the Angel. "What an odd kind of book!" said the Angel. "What do all those crazy dots mean?" (At that the Vicar's blood ran cold.) "What dots?" said the Curate. "There!" said the Angel with incriminating finger. "Oh _come_!" said the Curate. There was one of those swift, short silences that mean so much in a social gathering. Then the eldest Miss Papaver turned upon the Vicar. "Does not Mr Angel play from ordinary.... Music--from the ordinary notation?" "I have never heard," said the Vicar, getting red now after the first shock of horror. "I have really never seen...."