“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.”