"Andrew Carnegie was given scant warning that King Edward was on his way to pay him a surprise visit at Skibo Castle. The royal car was seen approaching but alas! Mr Carnegie's professional organist, who should have been at the wonderful organ to play the National Anthem as the King crossed the threshold, was disporting himself in the private swimming pool.

"Excitedly, Mr Carnegie commanded him to come out of the water and to do his job at the organ, which stood in the entrance hall. A screen was rigged round the instrument to hide him from view, and so King Edward passed through the portals of Skibo Castle to the strains of 'God Save the King' -- which would have produced a most appropriate and even dramatic effect if only, at the crucial moment of the King's entry, that screen had not fallen down to reveal the poor woebegone organist dripping wet in his bathing suit and shivering from cold and fright, as he sat at the keys."

[Carnegie's father was an advocate of the Chartism a working class movement whose members objected to the domination of Parliament by the aristocracy. "My childhood's desire," Carnegie later recalled, "was to get to be a man and kill a king."]