5 Barton St (on headed notepaper for National Liberal Club, Whitehall Place, S.W.). - T. T. [Thomas Tettrell Phelps?] says that he is getting tickets for Bob and Marsh to see "His Excellency" [comic opera with libretto by W. S. Gilbert] if he can, otherwise they must trust to the 'tender mercies of his dramatic judgment'. Bob went last night to the Empire with the Sandilands [John and James?], saw 'Ivette' [Yvette Guilbert], and 'was enrolled among her vassals and servitors'. T.T. was 'not quite sufficiently magnetised', claiming 'ignorance of the language', but the rest of them could also 'not understand much of it'. [Oswald?] Sickert talked about 'buying the Empire for his friends next Saturday' for the matinee; advises Marsh to go if he can; he would himself but will have to play [rugby] football that afternoon. Has exams next Monday until Thursday, 'unlike false Sextus' [he quotes Macauley] he is in 'an agony of apprehension' that they should 'fail to be the last'. Saw MacT [Jack McTaggart] last Sunday, who thought Marsh's 'critique splendid'; Bob hopes Marsh has 'not made an enemy of Iphigeneia after all', who was not mentioned in [William?] Archer's piece in the "Pall Mall" at all.
With monogram HPC and motto 'Mens sana in corpore sano'. - Thanks Bob for his letter about the rooms [at Trinity, Cambridge]; intends to choose Whewell's Court. Hopes to see Bob soon; he need not be alarmed about the Grove, as a 'perfectly effectual reconciliation' has taken place; will tell the details of the story when they meet. Bowen is 'keeping on young Sandilands and [?] Becham for another year; George now feels 'quite comfortable about the house next term'. Bowen is being very kind to him, and helping him get his poem 'ready for the prolusiones-press'; the essay is to be printed almost exactly as sent in. Has got the "Seven Lamps [of Architecture]" and "Modern Pictures" with his prize money, which came to over twenty pounds, and has now 'got all the big [underlined] Ruskins' since he got the "Stones of Venice" last year; also bought the sixteen-volume edition of Browning with his prize money. Sandilands should get his [cricket] flannels: he and Rome did very well in the game against the Household Brigade; reminiscent of when Grove House had 'Pope bowling at one end and Rome at the other at Lords'.
With monogram HPC and motto 'Mens sana in corpore sano'. - Hears that Bob is going abroad on Saturday; asks who he is going with. Asks for advice on exams he will have to take [at Cambridge] in October. Hopes to see Bob at Wallington in August and September. Is enjoying this term at Harrow as he never has before, with plenty of acquaintances; likes 'getting up the acting and spouting for Speech day' with Baker and [?] Geike, and is working even harder at history than at the beginning of term. Having great fun with the [cricket] Second XI who include 'young Sandilands' and are 'rather a nice set'. Hopes Bob can come down before he goes abroad.
With monogram HPC and motto 'Mens sana in corpore sano'. - Quotes the first line of Virgil's "Aeneid" to begin an account of a fight between his house and the 'Vannites', in which he, [Harold?] Sandilands and [Claude] Rome were involved, and the ensuing talk from Bowen who 'dwelt on his own sacrifices for the house', which George knows more of than most, and 'the bitterness of his disappointment'; George was very touched, and this is the only aspect which grieves him. Expects he will lose his monitorship.