Afternoon.—Too much depressed to work at Drama. Sands again. Crowd—Conjuror. I shall see this time. "I want a soft gentleman's hat," he says, suddenly. "Do you mind?" He takes mine—the crowd roar. "Will I assist him in this trick?" I did not mean to catch his eye—but I don't like to be disobliging.
I am in the centre with the Conjuror. "May he do what he pleases with my hat?" "By all means," I say, graciously. Then he'll keep it, he says. Childish joke that! "You're quite sure there's no hole in it?" he asks. I am not, I tell him, in the habit of wearing a hat with a hole in it. "Ain't you really? how do you get your head in?" he retorts, sharply. Very old—but Starmouth people easily amused.
"Do I ever toss for drinks?" No, I do not. Then he will show me how to do so, and win every time. He tosses up a penny on the little table, and covers it with my hat. "Which do I think it is?" I say heads—to please him. Again. "Now, Sir, heads or tails?" I happen to have seen it fall head uppermost—but no doubt he has manipulated it some way—if I say tails, he will look rather foolish. Tails, then. Will I lift my hat? I do—a guinea-pig! Renewed roars. I ought to be above feeling annoyed at this tomfoolery—but these conjuring fellows go too far.
Evening,—On Pier. Military Band. Bazaar: ladies and children touting for it. Wonder whether my "Firmness" is as large as Professor Skittles declared.—Because I certainly never intended to buy a box of cracker-bonbons, or a basket of ripe tomatoes—and yet here I am, carrying them about! And when I took a ticket for a raffle, I hardly counted upon winning this particularly gaudy sofa-cushion. Clergyman wants to sell me a very small plumcake, only three shillings.... I find I can be firm after all.
The girl with the brown eyes is on the pier, too, with a stout respectable old female—probably her maid. I think they recognise me as the victim of Phrenology; they glance at me with interest. Ah me! I wish—I wish, but what is the use of wishing?
In the Bazaar again. Young lady proposes to tell me my fortune for a penny, with a revolving card. I am in a superstitious mood—I want encouraging. She spins the card; the dial indicates, as she informs me, with unnecessary glee, "You spend your time in trifles."—Is a Nautical Drama a "trifle," I should like to know? I can't be quite the thing, for this incident affects me almost to tears. I have had a depressing day. Bed in low spirits.
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