The House of All Sorts by Emily Carr

I HATE pianos, tenants' pianos. They can make a landlady suffer so hideously. Lumbering tanks awaiting the touch (often unskilled) that will make them spill horrible noise, spitting it through their black and white teeth.

First the dreadful bump, bump of arrival, cruel gasps of men with backs bent--bruised and nicked woodwork--screech of rollered push-boards. Radios were a new invention then but it seemed every transient lugged around an old tin kettle of a piano.