Wednesday, September 5. With the British.

The major has a very good sense of the fitness of things. The room where I’m writing, by candlelight, is the best guest room in our château and was once occupied by the queen.

The rules of the household call for the dousing of downstairs glims at eleven o’clock. After that you may either remain down there in total darkness or come up here and bask in the brilliant rays of a candle. You should, I presume, be sleepy enough to go right to bed, but you’re afraid you might forget something if you put off the day’s record till tomorrow.

I overslept myself, as they say, and had to get Mr. Gibbons to help with the puttees. The lower part of the breeches, I found, could be loosened just enough to make the knee area inhabitable.