dreadful hour for me. And here am I lingering (so I feel) in
the dining-room at the Monument, talking to you across the
table, both on our feet, and only the two stairs to mount,
and get to bed, and sleep, and be waked by dear old George -
to whom I wish my kindest remembrances - next morning. I
look round, and there is my blue room, and my long lines of
shelves, and the door gaping on a moonless night, and no word
of S. C. but his twa portraits on the wall. Good-bye, my
dear fellow, and goodnight. Queer place the world!


MONDAY.


No clearness of mind with the morning; I have no guess what I
should do. 'Tis easy to say that the public duty should
brush aside these little considerations of personal dignity;
so it is that politicians begin, and in a month you find them
rat and flatter and intrigue with brows of brass. I am
rather of the old view, that a man's first duty is to these
little laws; the big he does not, he never will, understand;
I may be wrong about the Chief Justice and the Baron and the
state of Samoa; I cannot be wrong about the vile attitude I
put myself in if I blow the gaff on Cedarcrantz behind his
back.


TUESDAY.