CHAPTER X

Reflections.  I make another Good Joke.  Am annoyed at the constant serving-up of the “Blanc-Mange.”  Lupin expresses his opinion of Weddings.  Lupin falls out with Daisy Mutlar.

November 16.—­Woke about twenty times during the night, with terrible thirst.  Finished off all the water in the bottle, as well as half that in the jug.  Kept dreaming also, that last night’s party was a failure, and that a lot of low people came without invitation, and kept chaffing and throwing things at Mr. Perkupp, till at last I was obliged to hide him in the box-room (which we had just discovered), with a bath-towel over him.  It seems absurd now, but it was painfully real in the dream.  I had the same dream about a dozen times.

Carrie annoyed me by saying:  “You know champagne never agrees with you.”  I told her I had only a couple of glasses of it, having kept myself entirely to port.  I added that good champagne hurt nobody, and Lupin told me he had only got it from a traveller as a favour, as that particular brand had been entirely bought up by a West-End club.

I think I ate too heartily of the “side dishes,” as the waiter called them.  I said to Carrie:  “I wish I had put those ’side dishes’ aside.”  I repeated this, but Carrie was busy, packing up the teaspoons we had borrowed of Mrs. Cummings for the party.  It was just half-past eleven, and I was starting for the office, when Lupin appeared, with a yellow complexion, and said:  “Hulloh!  Guv., what priced head have you this morning?” I told him he might just as well speak to me in Dutch.  He added:  “When I woke this morning, my head was as big as Baldwin’s balloon.”  On the spur of the moment I said the cleverest thing I think I have ever said; viz.:  “Perhaps that accounts for the paraSHOOTING pains.”  We roared.

November 17.—­Still feel tired and headachy!  In the evening Gowing called, and was full of praise about our party last Wednesday.  He said everything was done beautifully, and he enjoyed himself enormously.  Gowing can be a very nice fellow when he likes, but you never know how long it will last.  For instance, he stopped to supper, and seeing some blanc-mange on the table, shouted out, while the servant was in the room:  “Hulloh!  The remains of Wednesday?”

November 18.—­Woke up quite fresh after a good night’s rest, and feel quite myself again.  I am satisfied a life of going-out and Society is not a life for me; we therefore declined the invitation which we received this morning to Miss Bird’s wedding.  We only met her twice at Mrs. James’, and it means a present.  Lupin said:  “I am with you for once.  To my mind a wedding’s a very poor play.  There are only two parts in it—­the bride and bridegroom.  The best man is only a walking gentleman.  With the exception of a crying father and a snivelling mother, the rest are SUPERS who have to dress well and have to pay for their insignificant parts in the shape of costly presents.”  I did not care for the theatrical slang, but thought it clever, though disrespectful.