Item 15: Archie Barwick diary, 1 October-14 December 1918 - Page 120
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[Page 120]
there was something fishy in these questions. However it ended there for that night, but each night through the week she kept asking me little questions about my trip & Sunday in particular till I began to get a bit tangled & confused in my own mind for I had to remember a mass of lies that had been built one upon the other like a pyramid. I thought to myself what a wonderful knowledge old Shakespeare had of human beings when he said
"Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive.
This sort of thing went on till last night when Ethel asked me quite innocently what kind of a time I had at the Royal last Sunday evening. Well I nearly fell off the seat you could have knocked me down with a feather, after me telling all these lies to be bowled out like that, & the worst of it was that I can honestly say that this was the first deliberate lie that I had ever told that I can remember & I suppose she would think now that I was in the habit of doing & saying these things.