April 19.—­Our next-door neighbour, Mr. Griffin, called, and in a rather offensive tone accused me, or “someone,” of boring a hole in his cistern and letting out his water to supply our cistern, which adjoined his.  He said he should have his repaired, and send us in the bill.

April 20.—­Cummings called, hobbling in with a stick, saying he had been on his back for a week.  It appears he was trying to shut his bedroom door, which is situated just at the top of the staircase, and unknown to him a piece of cork the dog had been playing with had got between the door, and prevented it shutting; and in pulling the door hard, to give it an extra slam, the handle came off in his hands, and he fell backwards downstairs.

On hearing this, Lupin suddenly jumped up from the couch and rushed out of the room sideways.  Cummings looked very indignant, and remarked it was very poor fun a man nearly breaking his back; and though I had my suspicions that Lupin was laughing, I assured Cummings that he had only run out to open the door to a friend he expected.  Cummings said this was the second time he had been laid up, and we had never sent to inquire.  I said I knew nothing about it.  Cummings said:  “It was mentioned in the Bicycle News.”

April 22.—­I have of late frequently noticed Carrie rubbing her nails a good deal with an instrument, and on asking her what she was doing, she replied:  “Oh, I’m going in for manicuring.  It’s all the fashion now.”  I said:  “I suppose Mrs. James introduced that into your head.”  Carrie laughingly replied:  “Yes; but everyone does it now.”

I wish Mrs. James wouldn’t come to the house.  Whenever she does she always introduces some new-fandangled rubbish into Carrie’s head.  One of these days I feel sure I shall tell her she’s not welcome.  I am sure it was Mrs. James who put Carrie up to writing on dark slate-coloured paper with white ink.  Nonsense!

April 23.—­Received a letter from Mrs. Lupkin, of Southend, telling us the train to come by on Saturday, and hoping we will keep our promise to stay with her.  The letter concluded:  “You must come and stay at our house; we shall charge you half what you will have to pay at the Royal, and the view is every bit as good.”  Looking at the address at the top of the note-paper, I found it was “Lupkin’s Family and Commercial Hotel.”

I wrote a note, saying we were compelled to “decline her kind invitation.”  Carrie thought this very satirical, and to the point.

By-the-by, I will never choose another cloth pattern at night.  I ordered a new suit of dittos for the garden at Edwards’, and chose the pattern by gaslight, and they seemed to be a quiet pepper-and-salt mixture with white stripes down.  They came home this morning, and, to my horror, I found it was quite a flash-looking suit.  There was a lot of green with bright yellow-coloured stripes.

I tried on the coat, and was annoyed to find Carrie giggling.  She said:  “What mixture did you say you asked for?”