Thackeray somewhere in the ‘Book of Snobs’ remarks that we are all snobs at heart and that if one walked down St. James Street with a Duke on either side, it wouldn’t be human not to wish to meet all ones friends. My ‘blushing honours’ are sufficiently young to give me something of a thrill to find myself making a ‘three’ up fields with the Captain of the School (Barrington-Ward) and the Princeps Oppidanorum (Low) to give them their full titles.
I enjoyed the afternoon. We talked much on School matter and history. We quoted from memory the Town Boy and King’s Scholar’s Ledgers on ancient rows; to compare the two was quite funny, each written with a strong bias to say the least of it. Barrington-Ward tells me the Dean want to get more in touch with the School and has offered to give lectures on anything we like to a select few only he doesn’t quite know how to set about it, and wanted to get the opinions of people in the School. I strongly urged Barrington Ward to try and work it as I think it would be most interesting. I was also told the Duchess of Albany is going to be asked to the Play.
We were all very annoyed with G. G. Williams who played the fool in Bug Soc. this afternoon and also for that matter in Deb. Soc. on Thursday; he really should know better. Barrington-Ward read a paper on ‘bats’ which was not uninteresting and I proposed a vote of thanks and remarked ‘That he had added very considerably to our knowledge of bats and that in future when one flew into our bedrooms at night we should no longer look upon him as a stranger and an enemy but welcome him as a friend’. I also quoted the fact that Tennyson prided himself on being able to hear ‘the shriek of a bat’ which he said was the test of a fine ear.
Meesrs Whitmore and Collier are amusing themselves by seeing just how far they can go and how much I will stand in the way of silliness; a dangerous game as the limit is very nearly reached. I refuse to be outstared by Whitmore at lunch, he fixes me with an eye expressive of calm cheek which is most exasperating. I answer with an icy stare straight through him, he doesn’t like that…
Hobson really is most revolting; he has produced a human back-bone which he persists in leaving about Inner. We shall have skulls and skeletons next.