We had a very jolly Christmas. The revellings have, in fact, only just begun to subside. Our Brigade Major spent his Christmas in the trenches along with his brother, a V.C. In that part of the line there was a truce for a quarter of an hour on Christmas Day, and a number of Englishmen and Germans jumped out and started talking together. A German gave one of our men a Christmas tree about two feet high as a souvenir. It is of the usual variety, covered with tinsel and adorned with glass balls. _January 4th, 1916._ I was indescribably grieved to read of the death of Nightingale.[5] Himself an O.A., he was in the Modern Sixth about 1900. He was a master at the dear old school from 1907, or thereabouts. I regarded him as one of my best friends among the masters. The year I took on the captaincy of the Junior School "footer," he gave me immense help as master in charge of the Junior School games. But really cricket was his game; he was a splendid bat on his day, a useful slow bowler and a fine fieldsman. He was such an enthusiast for cricket that he would take any and every chance of playing, no matter whether against the 1st XI or against the Junior School. In character he was extremely simple and unaffected--not a great scholar, but a shrewd thinker with a serviceable knowledge of history and literature, and a fine taste in reading. Personally he was one of the kindest of men and so easy to get on with. Though in no sense a professional soldier, yet from a strong feeling of duty he joined right at the start as a private in, I believe, the Rifle Brigade, with whom he served many months in France. He then got a commission in the 7th Lincolns, with whom he was serving when killed. [Footnote 5: Lieutenant F. L. Nightingale. Born, 1881. Killed in action in France, December 19th, 1915. A master at Dulwich, 1906-1914. A man of ripe culture and a splendid cricketer.] Here was a man who threw up all to take up soldiering, not because he had the military instinct, but from sheer patriotism and sense of duty. It was just like him--at school he would always put himself out to play in a game if a team was a man short. He was always called "Nighty" by the boys. Can you wonder, with the example of such a man before me, that I should be longing to get into the Infantry? Heavens! A man would not be a man who did not feel as I feel about this matter. Well, Sir John Simon has resigned. Rather a pity that such a career should be cut short. Still, at best he was a mere politician, and to tell you the truth I don't like politicians much. All the same, I do think Simon did some valuable work as Home Secretary, and earlier as Attorney-General.