first-fiddles

Updated: June 27, 2025

The town prided itself on knowing how to behave to royalty; and every day when the King went down to take the waters, or strolled in the municipal gardens, people pretended not to look at him; and only when he was not actually there did the conductor of the famous band, in the ranks of which operatic first-fiddles kept themselves in practice during their summer holidays only then did the conductor throw out a delicate compliment, for chance ear-shot, by performing, with variations such as were heard nowhere else, the National Anthem of Jingalo.

Laurence Housman - King John of Jingalo: The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties