or at any rate in what are called the small hours. Philip and I  walked home from dinner in Chelsea, hand in hand like children. The mist that rose 0from the river  was as thick as milk and we navigated by street lights , their glow as huge as lollipops. At the bottom of Northumberland Avenue we were challenged by a policeman who fell  in step with us , a magnificently amiable giant. We parted in Trafalgar Square, Constable Crouch  having advised me to bathe the feet daily in a bowl of  porter and mustard seed.  There was in his opinion nothing better  for what he called a perker-upper before pulling on a boot. He accepted a cheroot  from Philip but crushed it to fill his pipe  and walked off in a wreath of pale blue smoke. I blush to add that the evening continued  just as magically when we got home.

has married Mary Skillane and in place of a honeymoon in Rome or Florence plans to take his new bride to America. We dined at Chiswick last night and the house was filled with maps and  itineraries.
Kennett has invented a hat that will also serve as a washbasin, a thing he considers essential to their plans to rough it through the more barren  parts of the trail west. After dinner, Mary was pressed to model another of his inventions , his anti- horsefly necklace. It resembled nothing so much as a handful of pickled onions strung together on a bootlace. I shall never forget her wonderful eyes  begging me not to utter a word about this monstrous collar, nor the liquid it leaked . The evening ended with  a deliriously happy William playing tunes on a banjo, wearing his washbasin hat. They sail from Liverpool on Saturday . I shall miss them both terribly.

Quigley has narrowly escaped death! He happened to be at a church garden fete in Gravesend – and we may well ask how he ever came to be invited – where a balloon ascent was scheduled to take place. The noted pilot  M. Grasse was attempting a channel crossing. Quigley made some facetious attempt to assist in the untethering of the balloon, the upshot of which was that he was trapped by a rope about his ankle and sailed off  down the Thames Estuary , upside down and screaming blue murder . Grasse was in a quandary. If he did not gain height quickly, the balloon and its contents would be  smashed against the walls of the naval dockyard. To the amazement  of the onlookers , the balloon shot up  like a rocket and set off for the open sea  at a very brik lick. But Grasse had his wits about him and coming low over the Channel dumped the indignant Captain into the briny – but within sight of land . He was picked up by a herring boat , minus his trousers and one boot. The Mayor of Margate opened a small fund for him and the intrepid Captain ( and notorious chancer ) is richer by eight guineas.