Series 03: John Brady Nash letters, January 1914-December 1915 - Page 484
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[Page 484]
[This page is labelled page 6.]
was the piece de resistance, and very nice it was too. Mrs. H.D. Mackintosh has budded into the lioness in the social sphere, I noted her entertaining of the visiting Premiers and their wives. Nothing like money in this world. As I have often told you I made a very good start in practice to become well off, but in the course of a few years I became lost in the maze of money that flowed into me, and I was surrounded by a careless and spendthrift lot, to such effect that the resolutions which guided me for two years became inextricably pushed aside. I regret it now for your sakes because it would be very convenient to have sufficient cash to assure you of a comfortable income; it matters little for me, because when this show ends my game will have been played and any old thing will be sufficient for my needs. It is no use repining, for good or ill my acts have been performed and such as they have been they were mine. Poor but mayhap honest, silly but hard working, inconsiderate for self but helpful to others, fearless but unwise, a success or failure according to the point of view, will be in all probability the sum of the criticism passed upon me. I hope that I have done the State some service, and that the good deeds performed by me outweigh in the ballance the bad.
I should soon be growing fat. Jerome feeds me in fashion that suits me. A days diet: Breakfast: porridge or rice with sugar and condensed milk, a piece of the psoas muscle (fillet of steak) if it be beef, or two chops if it be mutton that has been sent, bread butter jam, biscuits, tea. Mid-day meal: Beef tea or soup, meat, pudding, fruit, biscuits. Evening meal, between 7 & 9 p.m.: tinned material of some kind, bread, butter, jam, fruit, biscuits. Tea at each meal. I eat more than it has been customary for me since coming to Egypt. It is all covered by the money for the government rations. The money provided is ample to feed every one to the full, yet in nearly every battalion there is complaint of shortage. I am sure that at the end of this month there will be a big surplus in money given to me to spend on food.
Lady Maitland is acting as chaperonne to the government people. Is it not so, while under her aegis Mrs Flowers, Mrs Travers, and the others, hover round. Money and position count very much in this world, the former buying most things; the latter having much in its train which lesser mortals have not. The possessor of either is envied, the other fellow seldom knowing what is in the mind of his colleague.
23.7.15 10.45 p.m. Another day has gone down behind us and the hour of midnight approaches. My warrant officer has set out for the railway station in Cairo to bring two patients who are due from Suez, I