George Grossmith - The Diary of a Nobody

APRIL 17. No water in our cistern again. Sent for Putley, who said he would soon remedy that, the cistern being zinc.

APRIL 18. Water all right again in the cistern. Mrs James, of Sutton, called in the afternoon. She and Carrie draped the mantelpiece in the drawing-room, and put little toy spiders, frogs, and beetles all over it, as Mrs James says it’s quite the fashion. It was Mrs James’s suggestion, and of course Carrie always does what Mrs James suggests. For my part, I preferred the mantelpiece as it was; but there, I’m a plain man, and don’t pretend to be in the fashion.

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-fangled 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 would 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?’

I said: ‘A quiet pepper-and-salt.’

Carrie said: ‘Well, it looks more like mustard, if you want to know the truth.’

Meet Teddy Finsworth, an old schoolfellow. We have a pleasant and quiet dinner at his uncle’s, marred only by a few awkward mistakes on my part respecting Mr Finsworth’s pictures. A discussion on dreams .

APRIL 27. Kept a little later than usual at the office, and as I was hurrying along a man stopped me, saying: ‘Hulloh! That’s a face I know.’ I replied politely: ‘Very likely; lots of people know me , although I may not know them.’ He replied: ‘But you know me – Teddy Finsworth.’ So it was. He was at the same school with me. I had not seen him for years and years. No wonder I did not know him! At school he was at least a head taller than I was; now I am at least a head taller than he is, and he has a thick beard, almost grey. He insisted on my having a glass of wine (a thing I never do), and told me he lived at Middlesboro’, where he was Deputy Town Clerk, a position which was as high as the Town Clerk of London – in fact, higher. He added that he was staying for a few days in London, with his uncle, Mr Edgar Paul Finsworth (of Finsworth and Pultwell). He said he was sure his uncle would be only too pleased to see me, and he had a nice house, Watney Lodge, only a few minutes’ walk from Muswell Hill Station. I gave him our address, and we parted.

In the evening, to my surprise, he called with a very nice letter from Mr Finsworth, saying if we (including Carrie) would dine with them tomorrow (Sunday), at two o’clock, he would be delighted. Carrie did not like to go; but Teddy Finsworth pressed us so much we consented. Carrie sent Sarah round to the butcher’s and countermanded our half-leg of mutton, which we had ordered for tomorrow.

APRIL 28, SUNDAY We found Watney Lodge farther off than we anticipated, and only arrived as the clock struck two, both feeling hot and uncomfortable. To make matters worse, a large collie dog pounced forward to receive us. He barked loudly and jumped up at Carrie, covering her light skirt, which she was wearing for the first time, with mud. Teddy Finsworth came out and drove the dog off and apologized. We were shown into the drawing-room, which was beautifully decorated. It was full of knick-knacks, and some plates hung up on the wall. There were several little wooden milk-stools with paintings on them; also a white wooden banjo, painted by one of Mr Paul Finsworth’s nieces – a cousin of Teddy’s.

Mr Paul Finsworth seemed quite a distinguished-looking elderly gentleman, and was most gallant to Carrie. There were a great many water-colours hanging on the walls, mostly different views of India, which were very bright. Mr Finsworth said they were painted by ‘Simpz’, and added that he was no judge of pictures himself but had been informed on good authority that they were worth some hundreds of pounds, although he had only paid a few shillings apiece for them, frames included, at a sale in the neighbourhood.

There was also a large picture in a very handsome frame, done in coloured crayons. It looked like a religious subject. I was very much struck with the lace collar, it looked so real, but I unfortunately made the remark that there was something about the expression of the face that was not quite pleasing. It looked pinched. Mr Finsworth sorrowfully replied: ‘Yes, the face was done after death – my wife’s sister.’

I felt terribly awkward and bowed apologetically, and in a whisper said I hoped I had not hurt his feelings. We both stood looking at the picture for a few minutes in silence, when Mr Finsworth took out a handkerchief and said: ‘She was sitting in our garden last summer,’ and blew his nose violently. He seemed quite affected, so I turned to look at something else and stood in front of a portrait of a jolly-looking middle-aged gentleman, with a red face and straw hat. I said to Mr Finsworth: ‘Who is this jovial-looking gentleman? Life doesn’t seem to trouble him much.’ Mr Finsworth said: ‘No, it doesn’t. He is dead too – my brother.’

I was absolutely horrified at my own awkwardness. Fortunately at this moment Carrie entered with Mrs Finsworth, who had taken her upstairs to take off her bonnet and brush her skirt. Teddy said: ‘Short is late,’ but at that moment the gentleman referred to arrived, and I was introduced to him by Teddy, who said: ‘Do you know Mr Short?’ I replied, smiling, that I had not that pleasure, but I hoped it would not be long before I knew Mr Short . He evidently did not see my little joke, although I repeated it twice with a little laugh. I suddenly remembered it was Sunday, and Mr Short was perhaps very particular .