I was badly late for Prep this morning and did not get down until about 25 past! Owing to a misunderstanding about boots, the ‘Lord’s Anointed’ (I thank thee, Brother Low for this phrase!) had to run with the vulgar in undignified fashion in order to get into Abbey. I have never been so late before, I am sure it was bad for a weak heart!…
The House Section had another drill this morning and were really a little smarter so I have done some good. They are still very bad but there was, I was glad to see, more ‘go’ in them today.
Influenza and bronchitis don’t seem to have affected the spirits of John Sargeaunt who was more entirely delightful this morning than he has been this term. We were doing the last 200 lines or so of the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’, not one would think a very productive subject, but John Sargeaunt was full of stories and quotations. Here are two of J.S.’s stories:
Theodore Hook used to come through a churchyard late at night and always said he saw a ghost in the porch. One night a friend dressed up in a sheet and went and sat in the porch. Theodore Hook looked in as usual and simply remarked cheerfully ‘Oh! There are two of you tonight are there?’ and passed on leaving the friend horribly scared!
The other (somewhat different) of the proud Father of Twins showing them to a Bachelor friend who remarked ‘which do you mean to keep’?!! This was a propos of Coleridge’s lines because the wolf was supposed to eat its young. The connection is not obvious but it shows the delightful way J.S. rambles on.
Thanks be we have beaten Ashburnham by the narrow margin of one goal (1-0) after a good game. Went ‘up’ fields with Sargeaunt as I remarked to Low ‘our feelings were too sharply divided’ for us to speak to each other today. The weather was fearful; drizzling and bitterly cold but by dint of two coats, two pairs of gloves and lust shouting I managed to keep it out. We didn’t get our goal ‘til after half time. We are one step nearer the shield and now I have no hesitation in longing for it. The surprise of the afternoon was Home Boarders beating Rigaud’s, the favourites, by 3-0!…Father wanted to suggest to those who had had ‘flu’ that they should take a rug up fields and wear it, but Hobson and myself squashed it as effeminate! Eventually they wore ‘sweaters’ underneath their overcoats!
After the match I went and had tea in college with Benvenisti and Wood. the only other invited guest was Low [an Ashburnhamite]!! He remarked bitterly ‘I didn’t expect to find you here!!’ but the topic of the match was avoided and we had a very pleasant little tea.
Barrington-Ward at the instigation of Wootton has started a crusade against ‘capping’ the Masters every time you meet them up-fields. You can’t go on taking off your hat, it becomes a nuisance both to them and to yourself. Ward wanted me to put up a notice about it as he was going to, but on thinking it over I came to the conclusion that it was hardly a thing to put up a notice about so I solved the difficulty by telling people as I went round Dormitories. I think that it was better so; of course in College it is more difficult as you don’t get people together there so much.
I feel quite cheered by this victory tonight. I wish I could say the same over my Exam next Thursday. I am horribly frightened there at [Scholarship examination for admission to Cambridge].
We have won another School Match defeating Eton by 5-2. Eton are big enough to run a Football Club as well as their other games hence the match. Anyhow we have won two out of three School Matches this year.
Tomorrow there are to be Seniors [football match] and I am hoping and praying that we shall win. We are to meet Ashburnham so in a sense my feelings are divided I do want though the shield so badly! The Team was settled today, I think it is all right, we certainly ought to beat Ashburnham.
I was so horrified at seeing the way our House Section was drilling this morning that I have spent the day in trying to get up keenness with I hope fair success. This morning was deplorable, no sting in the drill the whole Section as slack as could be and very bad. Miles and Graham the worst of the lot; I rowed everybody: I told ’em they must put their backs into it and make a decent fight to keep the cup. I even promised to drill myself if it would buck people up. I think I have made some impression but Hobson is so bad himself about getting drills, he wouldn’t have another this afternoon, when he might have and now won’t have one till Friday and perhaps not then.
I talked to Smurthwaite tonight and told him that if he was really weighed down by the cares of fagging he might share some of his labours with Frampton. I think the principal is wrong but it was such a grateful and pleased little person I sent away, it was worth it and it won’t hurt Frampton to do some of ‘the awful lot to be done(!)’ which troubles Smurthwaite’s soul.
Father had two very funny letters from the Smith family today by the same post. Mr Smith still very indignant (and rightly so) about Charterhouse calling in Sir Thomas Barlow, grave responsibility incurred by the school etc. etc. [presumably Mr Smith’s son had been taken ill at the match between Charterhouse and Westminster on Saturday] Mrs Smith, in private, ‘please do not let Mr Smith know I have written, mother’s know nothing of these things’!! Saying she expected Father was having irritable letters from her husband but he was not to take any notice. Mr Smith would cool down but when he came home tired from the city everybody came in for lectures. The boy was better and would cheerfully have stood in water up to his neck to see the match, she wasn’t alarmed herself and hoped he would soon be back etc!!
Graham and Marriott received their ‘Pinks’ after the match on Saturday so now we have two ‘pinks’ in the House I am glad to say. I nearly disgraced myself by gurgling out loud with amusement in ‘Hall’ today when I saw Marriott’s butterfly collars, the first day he is allowed to wear them!!! (Only School Monitors, Heads of Houses, VIIth, House Monitors and Pinks may do so.) I have been chortling all day on the subject of ‘how to show you are a pink on the first day you are one’. I gather from observations that the first important thing to show is that you are now a ‘blood’ (people so soon forget!!). You therefore pull you handkerchief just down beneath you cuff so a corner drops out, in a gentlemanly manner; you have your hat ironed; you interlace your conversation with ‘damns’ which is a racy and smart thing to do; and you wear the pinkest of pink scarfs. You are then mightily important, you are then ‘the very pink of society’.
I have had a shock. Smurthwaite came into Inner this evening and asked to be relieved of the duties of lag of Hall as ‘there was someone below him who only makes toast’ while he has to make toast and fag besides being lag of Hall. He wouldn’t mention names. I said I would think it over. He is quite right but he makes so admirable a ‘lag’ that I wanted to keep him on and I thought he had been willing. It is rather cheeky of him to ask me but he did it so nicely and humbly I didn’t comment on the fact!…
I received this P.C. [postcard] from Chappie this morning.
Went down to Oxted by the 1.10 with Father. F and K have been amusing themselves by making up an examination paper on Dickens, horribly difficult unless one knows one’s Dickens. Here are a few examples: ‘Whose regiment charged in a hollow square with the women and children and the regimental plate in the middle?’, ‘What food does a proud stomach reject?’, ‘What did Hamlet’s Aunt discourse on?’, ‘Who dropped her parasol down a grating?’, ‘Who got his head in a tight place?’ I do not think many people could answer these straight off.
The thaw has come and pouring rain accompanied it. It has rained in sheets almost all day in spite of this over a hundred went down to Charterhouse today. I regret to say the School were beaten 2-1 after getting the first goal and keeping the lead until 20 minutes before time.
I returned to civilized life this evening and came back into School. I only went in first hour this morning, however, as I still feel not quite right, nor did I go into School this afternoon but went on an invalids walk down embankment as far as the Tate Gallery and came to the conclusion I always come to, namely that if I was Head Master of Westminster I would revive ‘Water’ tomorrow.
Came back to tea and Mrs Smurthwaite came in, she asked me to go out one day in their motor which of coursed warmed the cockles of my heart to her. She is very nice I think, a very superior parent, she was not unamusing on the subject of her son who she described as ‘an oddment’ and whom she said she had disgracefully spoilt! Talking of her chauffer who is Italian (I think) she amused us by saying he only knew 3 English phrases when he first came which he used with cumulative effect on cabmen and such like: ‘You peeg , You fule (fool) you, Dam(n)!!’.
Troutbeck decreed today that all who have had ‘’flu’ cannot be allowed to go down to Charterhouse, myself included.
The snow is beginning to go, today we had sunshine and the light on the snow was beautiful but not so exquisite as Dr Liddell’s plane tree yesterday, outlined in snow against the grey sky, it was the only redeeming feature of the day!.
Tomlinson threw with ‘unerring hand’ a snow-ball at the window of Big Dormitory but the snow ball thoughtlessly when through the window and broken glass and ‘whoops’ from Tomlinson resulted. Father investigated and gently showed him the error of his ways to the extent of 2/6 in his Term’s bills.