17 Heriot Row
by
There is a small black notebook into which I look once or twice a year to refresh my memory of a carnal and spiritual pilgrimage to Edinburgh, made with Mifflin McGill (upon whose head be peace) in the summer of 1911. It is a testament of light-hearted youth, savoury with the unindentured joys of twenty-one and the grand literary passion. Would that one might again steer Shotover (dearest of pushbikes) along the Banbury Road, and see Mifflin’s lean shanks twirl up the dust on the way to Stratford! Never was more innocent merriment spread upon English landscape. When I die, bury the black notebook with me.
That notebook is memorable also in a statistical way, and perchance may serve future historians as a document proving the moderate cost of wayfaring in those halcyon days. Nothing in Mr. Pepys’ diary is more interesting than his meticulous record of what his amusements cost him. Mayhap some future economist will pore upon these guileless confessions. For in the black memorandum book I succeeded, for almost the only time in my life, in keeping an accurate record of the lapse of coin during nine whole days. I shall deposit the document with the Congressional Library in Washington for future annalists; in the meantime I make no excuse for recounting the items of the first sixty hours. Let no one take amiss the frequent entries marked “cider.” July, 1911, was a hot month and a dusty, and we were biking fifty miles the day. Please reckon exchange at two cents per penny.
L | s. | d
July 16 pint cider | | 4
1/2 pint cider | | 11/2
lunch at Banbury | 2 | 2
pint cider at Ettington | | 3
supper at Stratford | 1 | 3
stamp and postcard | | 2
_____________
| 4 | 31/2
July 17 Postcards and stamps | | 9
pencil | | 1
Warwick Castle | 2 | –
cider at the Bear and Baculus | |
(which Mifflin would call the | |
Bear and Bacillus) | | 21/2
Bowling Green Inn, bed and | |
breakfast | 3 | 2
Puncture | 1 | –
Lunch, Kenilworth | 1 | 6
Kenilworth Castle | | 6
Postcards | | 4
Lemonade, Coventry | | 4
Cider | | 21/2
Supper, Tamworth, The Castle Hotel | 2 | 1
_____________
| 16 | 51/2