"My musical gift was ruined," he explained, as they walked on after one of these demonstrations, "by the village organist at home, who had invented a system of notation which he tried to teach me, with the result that I never got to the tune-playing at all. My mother thought music wasn't manly for boys; she wanted me to kill rats and birds--that's the worst of living in the country. We live in Devonshire. It's the loveliest place in the world. Only--it's always difficult at home when one's grown up.