““For the next half-hour or so there was nothing to be done but sit and suffer it. We had Madame Tetrazzini trilling about the hissing and sissing of the needle, like a princess at the back of a cave with the sea monster snuffling outside it. We had Señor Caruso searching bravely for The Lost Chord in a forest of alien English vowel sounds. We had McCormack’s Kathleen Mavourneen , Clara Butt longing for her Ain Folk in accents suggesting that they might be found somewhere south of Hyde Park, a tenor whose name I forgot summoning Jerusalem, Jerusalem, and everybody looking devout over their empty teacups.””
