Can you hear anything yet? I have been given a diary. What have you got? Another diary? Is yours for 1921? So is mine. How dull! Christmas will be on a Sunday next year, I see. So will our wedding-day. I hope you'll remember it this time. And they have arranged for the Spring to begin on March 21st. Think of it! Spring—in less than three months!
There they go.
Hoot out, wild hooters, to the wild sky!
What a jolly noise! Much better than bells, really much more accurate as an expression of one's feelings. There's a sort of "faint but pursuing" note about it. And that's how I feel, rather. It was a dreadful year, really, wasn't it?—that last one, I mean. No money, no clothes—nothing but rates and dentists and small accounts respectfully submitted for our esteemed favour. One long crisis.... But we kept the flag flying. This year——
Hallo! somebody 's going to recite. What do you think it will be? You'll never guess. Yes, you're quite right.
Ring out a slowly-dying cause
And ancient forms of party strife.
That sounds like a bit of Government propaganda. Disgraceful, I call it. If I was a Wee Free——
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners——