Walk with Seymour to-day, who was very charming. Fell in love with a transparent tortoiseshell cigarette case for three guineas, very cheap I thought. He keeps his band of satellites in very good order. When he told them to leave the School Shop they did. They positively worship him. He is an extraordinary creature, I don’t believe he could get on without them: keeping them as some people keep a dog, to let off steam at. A rift between Harington Brown and Seymour, very amusing to watch: H. B. much the same as Seymour but lacks his charm. Seymour furious because H. B. has brought out a bad magazine called The Shop Window. Seymour thinks it is a challenge to his precious Noat Lights. If it is one it is a failure.
Dicky Maitland, who used to try and teach me science, has been writing to the Adjer to say that my Volunteer’s uniform is always untidy; the Adjer says he has had several notes: did you ever hear such cheek? But then the poor man is a military maniac.
As a matter of fact I ought to look quite well to-morrow on the occasion of the Yearly Inspection, as my tunic is nothing but oil stains, and everything else is sketchy and insecure.
J. W. P. told me last night that I was a person who wanted to fail at Noat and who thought (and only he knew how mistakenly) that he was going to be a success in after-life. A typically House-masterish thing to say. But then he was in a bad temper.
Later.—Have just announced that I go to the dentist to-morrow so shan’t be able to play in the House match that afternoon: frenzy; “I call that rather a shame,” etc. Isn’t it funny what a good player one becomes on a sudden?
The dentist to-morrow will be the third time he has tried to kill a nerve, and it isn’t nearly dead now, but still fairly active.
Tremendous excitement over Hutchinson’s coming novel, everyone trying to get a first edition.
Thursday.
Corps Inspection: all went well.
Afterwards I went up to the dentist, and in the train met Mayo, who is leaving early. Had a long talk mainly about Seymour and Co. As might be expected he did not like him, but what was more to the point, produced a most interesting reason and unanswerable to a person who holds views like his. Firstly, then, he has no use for a person who is no good at anything. He tolerates the clever scholar, he tolerates the half-wit athlete, but since he cannot see that any of us are remotely even one of these, he cannot bear us as a set.