The Journal of a Disappointed Man

The next 'bus took me to Richmond. Two young girls sat in front, and kept looking back to know if I was "game." I looked through them. Walked in the Park just conscious of the singing of Larks and the chatter of Jays, but harassed mentally by the question, "To whom shall I send my essay, when finished?" To shelter from the rain sat under an oak where four youths joined me and said, "Worse luck," and "Not half," and smoked cigarettes. They gossipped and giggled like girls, put their arms around each other's necks. At the dinner last night, they said, they had Duck and Tomato Soup and Beeswax ("Beesley, you know, the chap that goes about with Smith a lot") wore a fancy waistcoat with a dinner jacket. When I got up to move on, they became convulsed with laughter. I scowled. Had tea in the Pagoda tea-rooms, dry toast and brown bread and butter. Two young men opposite me were quietly playing the fool. "Hold my hand," one said audibly enough for two lovers to hear, comfortably settled up in a corner. Even at a side view I could see them kissing each other in between mouthfuls of bread and butter and jam. On rising to go, one of the two hilarious youths removed my cap and playfully placed it on top of the bowler which his friend was wearing. "My cap, I think," I said sharply, and the young man apologised with a splutter. I glared like a kill-joy of sixty.