The Journal of a Disappointed Man

I collapsed on the floor and could have cried. I lay on the floor of the bathroom resting with head on my arm, then set my teeth and crawled around the passage along two sides of a square, up three more steps to the other door which I opened and then entered. I had only examined two drawers containing only clothes, when a key turned in the front door lock and E---- entered with ---- and gave her usual whistle. I closed the drawers and crawled out of the room in time to hear E---- say in a startled voice to her mother: "Who's that upstairs?" I whistled, and said that being bored I had come up to see the cot: which passed at that time all right. Next morning my darling asked me why I went upstairs. I did not answer, and I think she knows. September 4. I am getting ill again, and can scarcely hold the pen. So good-bye Journal--only for a time perhaps. Have read this blessed old Journal out to E----. It required some courage, and I boggled at one or two bits and left them out. September 5. Leap-frog Some girls up the road spent a very wet Sunday morning playing leap-frog in their pyjamas around the tennis lawn. It makes me envious. To think I never thought of doing that! and now it is too late. They wore purple pyjamas too. I once hugged myself with pride for undressing in a cave by the sea and bathing in the pouring rain, but that seems tame in comparison.