For all your pagan pose, he writes, you are a fine old Irish Christian gentleman, as is proved by your suggestion of an after-cure, dictated no doubt at the identical moment when I was writing my answer to it. At any rate, I prefer to think of you as a Christian brother rather than as a Corsican brother. As I said, I shall probably take that after-cure, but take it at Harrogate, which is about as bracing a spot as any in the three kingdoms. To go straight to the sea might set up my rheumatism again, if indeed it is suppressed; there is no sign yet of that desiderandum....
It is necessary to insert my letter of 30.7.17 in order to explain Teixeira’s reply to it.
I went home for the week-end, I wrote, and travelled up this morning with C. H. C. has a new and most amusing game. It consists of inviting people to stay with him for the week-end and encouraging them to bathe in the river Thames and only disclosing, when the damage has been done, that the bed of that ancient river is richly studded with broken bottles. There was a small boy in the carriage with one badly injured foot as a result of C.’s pleasantry. I did a conspicuous St. Christopher stunt and carried the boy on my shoulders the entire length of the arrival platform at Paddington....
I, Teixeira answers, 30.7.17, once carried Willie Crosthwait, then aged 14, the whole length of the Euston departure platform. That beats you (and perhaps caused the best part of my present troubles). He is now an army chaplain; and I sit moaning at Harrogate.
Ululu!
My eviction took place in the first week of August; and on 3.8.17 I wrote to Teixeira:
I am thinking of moving to Chelsea on Tuesday.... You may remember a story of Benjamin Jowett in connection with two undergraduates who persisted in staying up at Balliol throughout the Long Vacation. Jowett, by way of gently dislodging them, insisted first that they should attend Chapel daily. The undergraduates grumbled, but obeyed. Jowett, seeing that his first attack had failed, arranged with the kitchen authorities that the food served to these recalcitrant young scholars should be entirely uneatable, and in the course of time their spirit was so much broken that they left him and Balliol in peace. He is reported to have said, as he watched them driving down to the station: “That sort goeth not forth but by prayer and fasting.” So with me. I have manfully withstood the stalwart labourers who break walls down all round me throughout the night; but, when the porters are paid off, the maids deprived of their rooms, the hot-water supply disconnected and the gas cut off at the main, I feel that I may retire with dignity and the full honours of war....
Make yourself as comfortable in Chelsea as you can, he answered on 4.8.17. As at present advised, we return on Wednesday fortnight, the 22nd....