hing seems to be coming undone
... Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India. This Bolshevist business ...
dreadful. The guard has got me a ticket for the Second Luncheon. A capital
fellow. I gave him three shillings. Absurd. I have no more shillings now. I
am overdrawn. There is a financial crisis. But that, of course, is general.
I see that Mr. Iselbaum anticipates a general smash this winter. A terrible
winter it is going to be ... no coal, no food ... We ought to be in by
five, in time for a fat late tea ... Cornish cream ... jam. Gwen will be at
the station, with the children, all in blue ... or pink perhaps. How jolly
the country looks! Superficial, of course; the harvest's ruined; no wheat,
no fruit. And unemployment will be very bad. And the more people there are
unemployed the more people will strike ... Sounds funny, that; but true ...
Hope they've given us the usual table in the coffee-room, that jolly
window-table in the corner, where one can look across the bay to the cliffs
and the corn-fields and the hills ... Only there's no corn, I suppose, this
year ... And one has a good view of the rest of the room there ... can
study the new arrivals at dinner, instead of having to wait till
afterwards. Dinner is much the best time to study them; you can see at once
how they eat. And it is so much easier to decide which is the sister and
which the _fiancee_ of the young man when they are all stationary at a
table. When you only see them rushing about passages in ones it takes days.

All the usual families will be there, I suppose--the Bradleys and the
Clinks, old Mrs. Puntage and the kids--if they can afford it this year ...
Very likely they can't. I can't, certainly. But I'm going.

"Not since the fateful week-end of August, 1914, when the destinies of
Europe were decided in a few hours, have issues of such gravity engaged the
attention of the British race...." Dreadful. I shall get some tennis
tomorrow. I shan't be called. I shall get up when the sun is on my face and
not before. I shall dress very, very slowly, looking at the sea and the
sands and the sun, not rushing, not shaving properly, not thinking, not
washing a great deal, just sort of falling into an old coat and some grey
flannels.... Then I shall just sort of fall downstairs--about half-past
nine, and give the old barometer a bang. Then breakfast, very deliberate,
but cheerful, because the glass went up when I banged it--it always goes up
at that hotel ... like