The Journal of a Disappointed Man

In the middle I did a knee-jerk which made them scream with laughing--the patellar reflex was new to them, so I seized a brush from the grate, crossed to Her and gently tapped: out shot her foot, and ----cried: "Oh, do do it to me as well." It was rare fun. "Oh! pretty knee, what do I see? And he stooped and he tied up my garter for me." February 10. News of Scott's great adventure! Scott dead a year ago!! The news, when I saw it to-night in the Pall Mall Gazette gave me cold thrills. I could have wept.... What splendid people we humans are! If there be no loving God to watch us, it's a pity for His sake as much as for our own. February 15. Tried to kiss her in a taxi-cab on the way home from the Savoy--the taxi-cab danger is very present with us--but she rejected me quietly, sombrely. I apologised on the steps of the Flats and said I feared I had greatly annoyed her. "I'm not annoyed," she said, "only surprised"--in a thoughtful, chilly voice. We had had supper in Soho, and I took some wine, and she looked so bewitching it sent me in a fever, thrumming my fingers on the seat of the cab while she sat beside me impassive. Her shoulders are exquisitely modelled and a beautiful head is carried poised on a tiny neck. February 16. Walking up the steps to her flat to-night made me pose to H---- (who was with me) as Sydney Carton in the picture in A Tale of Two Cities on the steps of the scaffold. He laughed boisterously, as he is delighted to know of my last evening's misadventure.