Keen musicians and busy men, the surreptitious pleasures of ensemble playing could only be indulged in on Sunday mornings during church hours in some friendly back drawing-room. Such desecrations of the Sabbath being liable to be visited by the rigour of the law, the ire of landladies and neighbours, the fearful joy of quartet playing had frequently to be snatched in our house. On one occasion a sharp-eared policeman interrupted the harmony. "But this is sacred music," said my father, showing him a quartet by Haydn. Whether this undeniable fact, or the half-crown and a dram convinced the departing constable, remained purely a matter of conjecture. << less