Stephen’s birthday. His health shall be drunk in brimming barley-water; and, though I believe he has already had a birthday-present, he shall have a copy of The Tour the moment it arrives. Good luck to him!
P.S. Absolutely a good notice of The Tour in the Sunday Times. My wife says that the critic must have been drunk.
Monday, 28 February.
Arrival of a terrible Yorkshire group, two men and a woman.... They foregather with ... a man who appears in carpet-slippers, like Kipps, and talk of nothing but food, in broad Leeds.
Tuesday, 1 March.
... “Ah had hum-und-eggs to my breakfast this morning. Ah was always partial to hum-und-eggs for breakfast.... Ah had new potai-i-toes ut the dinner. Ah said to McKanner, ‘These are too good to pass.’ We had summon with ’em, summon und new potai-i-itoes.”
They seem to be bank-managers and to have dined with Reggie at some London City and Midland Bank-wet....
Thursday, 3 March.
T. takes me to East Dene, the childhood home of Swinburne, now a convent of the Sacred Heart. I am shown over the entrancing grounds by the Mother Superior. Before taking me into the chapel:
“You are not a catholic, I suppose?” she asks.