him, "I beg your pardon, Leslie; but why did you shove me off the table? I did nothing to you." In a moment he said, "What damned cheek!" (All the fellows say "damn" here. No one thinks anything of it.) And caught me a kick would have sent me over, if it hadn't been for the wall. As it was, I got my coat all whited and bumped my head again on the other side.'
I kept this diary for the first month I was at Glastonbury. After that, repetitions became more frequent, and at last one half-holiday late in October, more than a week behind, I in a pet gave it up, and put the book containing it at the back of my locker in the hall.
The term dragged on wearily.
It grew colder and colder. I got chilblains, first on my feet and then on my hands, at last suffering torments with them. And the bread and meat were often quite uneatable, and what else was there to live on?
It was a somewhat strange feeling of pleasure, I remember, that which came over me after I had eaten my first dinner in the holidays in the house of Mr. Jones, the solicitor. I suppose Colonel James paid for me. I didn't care for them. Mr. Jones was only at home in the evenings, and didn't speak to me much then. But I was happy enough; for I could just go where I liked and Mrs. Jones didn't bother if I didn't come in to lunch in the middle of the day so long as I told her I wasn't going to. At first I felt rather odd going 'out of bounds'; but that wore off. Mrs. Jones is a fat lady, good-humoured and, altogether, not bad; but she's always asking me questions about myself and Craven and Mrs. Craven and the other masters and the ladies they're married to. As if I knew anything about them!
The snow was down then everywhere; it was cold too; but I had some new thick red woollen gloves, and my chilblains were much better, and I didn't mind it. One day I asked Eliza the cook (I liked her pretty well: she reminded me of Cookie) to give me some bread and butter and an apple; for the sun was shining and I wanted to go out for a long walk into the country. I like walking along the roads like that, looking at the snow all glistening, and now and then a little bird hopping about or, out by Raymond wood, even a
