Flowers and the country were always attractive to Orchardson, and in 1897 he bought a house near Farningham. Once settled, they were invited to a large county dinner-party to be introduced to their neighbours. Just before it was time to dress for dinner, it was discovered that Orchardson had not brought his dress-clothes from London. Should they send a message that they could not go? No; they decided that would be ridiculous. Had he a frock-coat? No; he had not even that in the country, and a blue serge suit was all that could be produced. Accordingly, the artist appeared at the formal county dinner arranged in his special honour more like an English yachtsman than a dinner-party guest; and, to add to their misery—it had taken so long to hunt for the clothes, and it took much longer to drive than they had anticipated—the guests had already sat down when they were ushered into the dining-room. For many years before this, the Orchardsons lived off and on at Westgate. It was there he built the tennis-court—real tennis, not lawn tennis—that from first to last cost about £3000, and was finally pulled down and sold as old bricks and mortar. That game was his recreation and his amusement, and round him the painter collected tennis players from all over the world. He called it the “king of games,” just as he called fly-fishing the “king of sports.” Another hobby was old furniture. One of his most prized treasures was an old piano. A Vienna Flügel of the seventeenth century, containing peals, drums, and bells. It was shaped like an ordinary grand, with rounded side-pieces of beautiful rich-coloured mahogany, and in tone resembled a spinet. This he gave a year or two before his death with a tall harp piano, to the South Kensington Museum. One day, walking down Oxford Street, he had seen the end of this Flügel piano sticking out of some straw outside an auctioneer’s. The wood and form struck him, and he pulled aside the straw to examine it more closely. He had the legs brought out to him, and found they were figures supporting worlds, on which the piano rested. Charmed and delighted at the whole design, he offered to bid for it—and as only two very old musicians, who remembered the piano in their youth, bid against him, it was knocked down to him. Afterwards he found the only other similar one in England was owned by the Queen, and stood at Windsor. Funnily enough, he who had himself painted so many portraits, disliked nothing in the world so much as sitting himself.