Thursday, May 1st

A real May day, finer, I warrant, than they have in England. Came late from Travancore and got away after dinner to the Island with a heavy cargo of bricks—a fresh breeze took us gaily. The rest of the timber had been landed the day before. Andy was finishing the back door. The kitchen chimney quite finished and our sitting-room 'smoke draft' (as Willy calls it) begun. Home soon. Received today page 176an ill-tempered letter from Brittan in answer to one in which I had delicately refused to advise the bank manager to discount his bill upon his brother in England; he accused me of gratuitous and unnecessary insult to him; to which I replied that he was the only individual of my acquaintance who would consider me capable of doing so to any one. Finished Pendennis. I think Blanche Amory a little like Fanny.