“Olivia!”

This time it is Robert.

“Olivia, if this bungalow fell into the tank would it splash out all the water?”

“Of course it would.”

“Then what would the water do when it fell back from the splash and found the bungalow blocking up its tank?”

Unable to think of an answer, I tell him to be a good boy and not disturb people when they are writing.  Ronald begs for a piece of paper and a pencil, and having got it, proceeds to write down everything beginning with G. I once told Peter to do that, and his list when I looked at it ran:  “God—­Gollywog—­Gordon Highlanders."...

Immediately I resume my writing it begins again, “Olivia” in every tone, peremptory, beseeching, coaxing—­but like the deaf adder I stop my ears and refuse to hear.  I am using this opportunity to write my great work on the Mutiny, and it isn’t nearly so easy to write a book as I thought.  No matter how much I try, my sentences seem all to stand up on end.  I can’t acquire any ease or grace of style.  I read somewhere lately that young writers use too many adjectives, that good writers depend more on verbs.  It has made me rather nervous and I keep counting both, but a certain dubiety in my own mind as to which is which greatly complicates matters.  My heroine, too, is a failure, I like her name—­Belinda—­but it is the only thing I like about her.  What is the good of me laboriously writing down that she is beautiful and charming when I am convinced in my own mind she is nothing of the kind?  However, I mean to persevere....

We all meet at tea—­the nicest time of the day I think.  My friend Katie says the world isn’t properly warmed up till five o’clock, and certainly there is a feeling of comfort all over everything at the clink of the teacups.  Mrs. Russel being Scots, knows how to give a proper tea, with plates, and knives, and scones, and jam; and I am as greedy as a schoolboy over it.  Yesterday there was no milk—­such a blow.  The cows had wandered into a man’s land, and he, as the custom is, marched them into the pound five miles away, and there we were—­milkless!

The country round Takai is quite pretty—­almost like Scots moorland.  Yesterday we went for a picnic to a river at the opening of a pass—­a most interesting place where not very long ago a native boy had been eaten by a tiger.  You see, picnics in the jungle are not quite the insipid things they are at home!  There is always the chance that the unwary may be devoured.  Actually we did see yesterday the footprints of a tiger in the sand by the river—­pugs I think is the proper expression.  I was scared, but Robert advanced boldly into the bushes.  Ronald, watching him admiringly, said, “He is very brave; he is as brave as Daniel.”