crowd together - never. My imagination, which is not the
least damped by the idea of having my head cut off in the
bush, recoils aghast from the idea of a life like
Gladstone's, and the shadow of the newspaper chills me to the
bone. Hence my late eruption was interesting, but not what I
like. All else suits me in this (killed a mosquito) A1
abode.

About politics. A determination was come to by the President
that he had been an idiot; emissaries came to G. and me to
kiss and be friends. My man proposed I should have a
personal interview; I said it was quite useless, I had
nothing to say; I had offered him the chance to inform me,
had pressed it on him, and had been very unpleasantly
received, and now 'Time was.' Then it was decided that I was
to be made a culprit against Germany; the German Captain - a
delightful fellow and our constant visitor - wrote to say
that as 'a German officer' he could not come even to say
farewell. We all wrote back in the most friendly spirit,
telling him (politely) that some of these days he would be
sorry, and we should be delighted to see our friend again.
Since then I have seen no German shadow.

Mataafa has been proclaimed a rebel; the President did this
act, and then resigned. By singular good fortune, Mataafa
has not yet moved; no thanks to our idiot governors. They
have shot their bolt; they have made a rebel of the only man
(TO THEIR OWN KNOWLEDGE, ON THE REPORT OF THEIR OWN SPY) who
held the rebel party in check; and having thus called on war
to fall, they can do no more, sit equally 'expertes' of VIS