There have been endless rows in the school this term and wholesale expulsions. House-masters are told all about them, and the rest of us kept in ignorance. What the whole body of the school knows is hidden from us poor juniors. On what principle I wonder? Elspeth and I fight daily over books. She dislikes any papers, magazines or books in the drawing-room, and I hate to see the best room in the house given over to nothing but clothes in the making. Having sold under compulsion all the books that I so much valued I am now trying to build up another library. This naturally costs money, but, as I frequently tell Elspeth, I can't get ideas to write about unless I read a good deal. My neurasthenia has been so acute lately that I have had to see the school doctor: he wants me to go into a sort of retreat for the Easter holidays alone. I'd far rather die. Because I attended every debate and dramatic reading at the School Debating Society last term I have been elected president. We have had debates on conscription, Lloyd George, and classical and modern subjects. I have brought up the average attendance from forty to about a hundred. I shall not be content until we get the majority of the school to attend. These debates, etc., take place in Big School on alternate Saturday evenings from 7 till 8.45. That means dinner at 6.30, which precludes the possibility of many members of Common Room attending. When I first began to go the meetings were rather disorderly and riotous, and no one cared much about the subject. There were long and awkward pauses, but now we have managed to rouse a good deal of opposition, and people come with very carefully prepared speeches, and there are less irrelevancies. I have had one severe attack of appendicitis, but it passed off after a few hours. Of course the school has had the usual diseases, mumps and diphtheria. The whole town is down with the latter: it is said that the water is bad, the milk is bad, and the sanitary arrangements mediæval. It is really the most backward, sleepy place I ever came across. The District Council fight among themselves, but never do anything for the public weal. Most of the members are drapers, butchers, and bakers, and consider nothing but their own interests. I have been elected to the Sunday Afternoon Literary Society. There are eight boy members and eight masters. We meet at 3.15 on alternate Sunday afternoons, and a paper is read for an hour, and afterwards there is tea. This society has been in existence for fifty years. There is never any discussion, which is a great pity. At the end of term a Shakespeare play is read.