Page:Diary of a Nobody.djvu/155

THE DIARY OF A NOBODY. I said: "Are you in the habit of receiving insulting Christmas cards?" He replied: "Oh yes, and of sending them, too."

In the evening Gowing called, and said he enjoyed himself very much last night. I took the opportunity to confide in him, as an old friend, about the vicious punch last night. He burst out laughing, and said: "Oh, it was your head, was it? I know I accidentally hit something, but I thought it was a brick wall." I told him I felt hurt, in both senses of the expression.

.—Lupin spent the whole day with the Mutlars. He seemed rather cheerful in the evening, so I said: "I'm glad to see you so happy, Lupin." He answered: "Well, Daisy is a splendid girl, but I was obliged to take her old fool of a father down a peg. What with his meanness over his cigars, his stinginess over his drinks, his farthing economy in turning down the gas if you only quit the room for a second, writing to one on half-sheets of note-paper, sticking the remnant of the last cake of soap on to the new cake, putting two bricks on each side of the fireplace, and his general 'outside-halfpenny-'bus-ness,' I was compelled to let him have a bit of my mind." I said: "Lupin, you are not much 153