of rain since last month, when the pond began to
fill. To strangers this may seem surprising, and it is only fair
to tell them the great secret, which is that much of the
surrounding land drains secretly into the pond too. This seems to
me to give a much fairer indication of the rain that has fallen
than do the official figures in the newspapers. For when your
whole day's cricket has been spoilt, it is perfectly absurd to be
told that .026 of an inch of rain has done the damage; the soul
yearns for something more startling than that The record of the
pond, that there has been another 5 in., soothes us, where the
record of the ordinary pedantic rain-gauge would leave us
infuriated. It speaks much for my friend Aldenham's breadth of
view that he understood this, and planned the pond accordingly.
A most necessary thing in a country house is that there should be
a recognized meeting-place, where the people who have been
writing a few letters after breakfast may, when they have
finished, meet those who have no intention of writing any, and
arrange plans with them for the morning. I am one of those who
cannot write letters in another man's house, and when my pipe is
well alight I say to Miss Robinson--or whoever it may be--"Let's
go and look at the pond." "Right oh," she says willingly enough,
having spent the last quarter of an hour with The Times Financial
Supplement, all of the paper that is left to the women in the
first rush for the cricket news.
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