I have already had two or three dire conflicts in Common Room over the articles I have lately published. Several of my colleagues won't speak to me: others say that I am trying to head a revolt against games and all the age-old traditions that made Marlton famous: "whippersnapper" is the phrase most commonly employed about me I think. I see myself classed with Tipham of "The Lanchester Tradition." One of the greatest pleasures I get in life is on alternate Saturday evenings, when I attend the School Debating Society and let loose some of my "wild" theories. These do not tend to make me more popular, but they certainly rouse people to speak who normally would keep silence either through nervousness or indifference. My work I should like if only there were more of it. I get so little to do that life hangs very heavily on my hands. I am become further domesticated by the possession of a dog and a cat. We quarrel over the animals. I loathe the cat: I hate all sleepy things and Elspeth hates the dog in the house. Consequently I go off with "Sludge" (a wild rough-haired terrier with no respect for anything in the world) and tramp the country for miles and talk to him: he can understand my frets and worries. He is very like me, never happy unless he is out and about chasing something frenziedly. Elspeth stays at home and consoles herself with the cat. It's a bad existence. Lately I have succumbed to a new disease. I have an overmastering desire to hear the roar and bustle of London: I believe if we lived there we should be happy, there is such heaps to do. Most husbands in the city only see their wives at night, in the early morning and evening. Consequently they are glad to meet, whereas Elspeth and I can see one another nearly every moment of the day. I am in to all meals and invariably about the place when rooms are being cleaned out, which seems to me to be happening all and every day. The only way I have kept going is by keeping the house full of visitors, mainly old Radcastrians, who come to see what sort of a married man I make. One curious incident that has just happened will give the clue to my state of mind.