n the least bit odd.

"I'm told," said Eva, "that he's going into the Hanbridge Choir!"

Mr Loggerheads was the principal tenor of the Bursley Glee and Madrigal
Club. And he was reckoned one of the finest "after-dinner tenors" in the
Five Towns. The Hanbridge Choir was a rival organization, a vast and
powerful affair that fascinated and swallowed promising singers from all
the choirs of the vicinity. The Hanbridge Choir had sung at Windsor, and
since that event there had been no holding it. All other choirs hated it
with a homicidal hatred.

"I'm told," Eva proceeded, "that the Birmingham and Sheffield Bank will
promote him to the cashiership of the Hanbridge Branch on the
understanding that he joins the Hanbridge Choir. Shows what influence
they have! And it shows how badly the Hanbridge Choir wants him."

(Mr Loggerheads was cashier of the Bursley branch of the Birmingham and
Sheffield Bank.)

"Who told you?" asked Mary Morfe, curtly.

Richard Morfe said nothing. The machinations of the manager of the
Hanbridge Choir always depressed and disgusted him into silence.

"Oh!" said Eva Harracles. "It's all about." (By which she meant that it
was in the air.) "Everyone's talking of it."

"And do they say Mr Loggerheads has accepted?" Mary demanded.

"Yes," said Eva.

"Well," said Mary, "it's not true!... A mistake!" she added.

"How do you know it isn't true?" Mr Morfe inquired doubtfully.

"Since you're so curious," said Mary, defiantly, "Mr Loggerheads told me
himself."

"When?"

"The other day."

"You never said anything to me," protested Mr Morfe.

"It didn't occur to me," Mary replied.

"Well, I'm very glad!" remarked Eva Harracles. "But I thought I ought to
let you know at once what was being said."

Mary Morfe's expression conveyed the fact that in her opinion Eva
Harracles' evening call was a vain thing, too lightly undertaken, and
conceivably lacking in the nicest discretion. Whereupon Mr Morfe was
evidently struck by the advisability of completely changing the subject.
And he did change it. He began to talk about certain difficulties in the
choral parts of Havergal Brian's _Vision of Cleopatra_, a work which he
meant the Bursley Glee and Madrigal Club to perform though it should
perish in the attempt. Growing excited, in his dry way, concerning the
merits of this composition, he rose from his easy chair and went to
search for it. Before doing so he looked at the clock, which indicated
twenty