The Diary of a Nobody

MAY 9.— Still a little shaky, with black specks. The Blackfriars Bi-weekly News contains a long list of the guests at the Mansion House Ball. Disappointed to find our names omitted, though Farmerson’s is in plainly enough with M.L.L. after it, whatever that may mean. More than vexed, because we had ordered a dozen copies to send to our friends. Wrote to the Blackfriars Bi-weekly News, pointing out their omission. Carrie had commenced her breakfast when I entered the parlour. I helped myself to a cup of tea, and I said, perfectly calmly and quietly: “Carrie, I wish a little explanation of your conduct last night.” She replied, “Indeed! and I desire something more than a little explanation of your conduct the night before.” I said, coolly: “Really, I don’t understand you.” Carrie said sneeringly: “Probably not; you were scarcely in a condition to understand anything.” I was astounded at this insinuation and simply ejaculated: “Caroline!” She said: “Don’t be theatrical, it has no effect on me. Reserve that tone for your new friend, Mister Farmerson, the ironmonger.” I was about to speak, when Carrie, in a temper such as I have never seen her in before, told me to hold my tongue. She said: “Now I’m going to say something! After professing to snub Mr. Farmerson, you permit him to snub you, in my presence, and then accept his invitation to take a glass of champagne with you, and you don’t limit yourself to one glass. You then offer this vulgar man, who made a bungle of repairing our scraper, a seat in our cab on the way home. I say nothing about his tearing my dress in getting in the cab, nor of treading on Mrs. James’s expensive fan, which you knocked out of my hand, and for which he never even apologised; but you smoked all the way home without having the decency to ask my permission. That is not all! At the end of the journey, although he did not offer you a farthing towards his share of the cab, you asked him in. Fortunately, he was sober enough to detect, from my manner, that his company was not desirable.”