And here perhaps I may appropriately tell the story of my "cabman critic." I picked him up one night on leaving the Albert Hall, after conducting a concert. He drove me home. I had alighted in Dean's Yard, and was searching in my pocket for the fare, when suddenly he exclaimed, "Well, Sir Frederick, how did the concert go off?" I was rather taken aback by this unexpected query, and for a moment hardly knew what to reply. In point of fact, the particular concert was one of a special character. We had given a selection of Wagner, including "The Last Supper," a very difficult work which had not been done in London for, I think, some twenty-five years indeed, very few choral societies had been able to tackle it. Pulling myself together, I said to the expectant cabby, "Oh, I think pretty fair." My friend at once replied, "Well,for myself I don't understand Wagner [pronouncing it in familiar English], he is too abstruse and athematical for me." This amused me very much, and after a little more conversation I said, "Well, you know who I am. If you like to look out for me I shall be glad to employ you to take me to and from the rehearsals." He thanked me, and said he would not forget. True to his word he turned up on the next occasion of a rehearsal. Afterwards I employed him often. He constantly came to the rehearsals, and also to the concerts, and on not a few occasions honoured me by adversely criticising my conducting. For example, he said, after a performance of "Messiah," "It was very good, Sir Frederick, very good : but what makes you take the 'Hallelujah Chorus' so fast?" "Fast," said I, "I didn't take it fast." "Oh, yes, you did," he observed, shaking his head, adding, as he drove off, "It may gain in brilliancy by your method, but it loses in majesty. Good-night!"