prestige and honour were those of his own straight soul.  The Hall Porter is an ex-Sergeant-Major, and he and Marigold are old acquaintances, and the meeting of the two warriors is acknowledged by a wink and a military jerk of the head.  I think it is Marigold that impresses Bunworthy with a respect for me, for that august functionary never fails to descend the steps and cross the pavement to my modest little two-seater; an act of graciousness which (so I am given to understand by my friends) he will only perform in the case of Royalty Itself.  A mere Field-marshal has to mount the steps unattended like any subaltern.

These red-letter days when I drive through the familiar (and now exciting) hubbub of London, I love (strange taste!) every motor omnibus, every pretty woman, every sandwich-man, every fine young fellow in khaki, every car-load of men in blue hospital uniform.  I love the smell of London, the cinematographic picture of London, the thrill of London.  To understand what I mean you have only got to get rid of your legs and keep your heart and nerves and memories, and live in a little country town.

Yes, my visits to London are red-letter days.  To get there with any enjoyment to myself involves such a fussification, and such an unauthorised claim on the services of other people, that my visits are few and far between.

A couple of hours in a club smoking-room—­to the normal man a mere putting in of time, a vain surcease from boredom, a vacuous habit —­is to me, a strange wonder and delight.  After Wellingsford the place is resonant with actualities.  I hear all sorts of things; mostly lies, I know; but what matter?  When a man tells me that his cousin knows a man attached as liaison officer to the staff of General Joffre, who has given out confidentially that such and such a thing is going to happen I am all ears.  I feel that I am sucked into the great whirlpool of Vast Events.  I don’t care a bit about being disillusioned afterwards.  The experience has done me good, made a man of me and sent me back to Wellingsford as an oracle.  And if you bring me a man who declares that he does not like being an oracle, I will say to his face that he is an unblushing liar.

All this is by way of preface to the statement that on the third of May (vide diary) I went to the club.  It was just after lunch and the great smoking-room was full of men in khaki and men in blue and gold, with a sprinkling of men, mostly elderly, in mufti; and from their gilt frames the full-length portraits of departed men of war in gorgeous uniforms looked down superciliously on their more sadly attired descendants.  I got into a corner by the door, so as to be out of the way, for I knew by experience that should there be in the room a choleric general, he would inevitably trip over the casually extended front wheel of my chair, greatly to the scandal of modest ears and to my own physical discomfiture.