13 April.
The work is pretty stiff and I doubt if I can make this desultory diary as gossipy as I could have wished. And, after all, it will seem pretty stale and jejune by the time it reaches you. . . .
Your whereabouts are known now in the dept. and will be at the club to-morrow, if any one asks me again. Hitherto great wonder has reigned; but the "no blame attaches to his name" stunt has worked exquisitely.
The figure of Max Beerbohm's caricature
is seen in the following paragraph:
I have ordered eight new coloured shirts,
bringing the total up to 23. Then I have about
a dozen black-and-white shirts; and only seven
dress-shirts, I find. This makes 42 in all. My
father's theory was that no gentleman should
have fewer than eighty shirts to his name.
Times have changed; and we are a petty and
pettyfogging generation of mankind. On the
other hand, I have 33 ties, exclusive of white
ties. I feel almost sure that my father did not
have so many as that. And I outdo him utterly
in boot-trees, of which I have just ordered a pair
to be marked "L8" and "R8," meaning thereby
that it is my eighth pair. Sursum corda.''
