1 July. His spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as his flies, and today I told him that he must get rid of them. He looked very sad at this, so I said that he must get rid of some of them, at all events. He cheerfully acquiesced to this, and I gave him the same time as before for reduction.

He disgusted me much while with him, for when a horrid blowfly, bloated with some carrion food, buzzed into the room, he caught it, held it exultantly for a few moments between his finger and thumb, and before I knew what he was going to do, put it in his mouth and ate it. I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that it was very good and very wholesome, that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him. This gave me an idea, or the rudiment of one. I must watch how he gets rid of his spiders.

He has evidently some deep problem in his mind, for he keeps a little notebook in which he is always jotting down something. Whole pages of it are filled with masses of figures, generally single numbers added up in batches, and then the totals added in batches again, as though he were preparing some account, as the auditors put it.

Vocabulary:

At all events: Anyway, in any case
Acquiesce: Agree to let something happen
Bloated: Swollen with gas or food
Carrion: Dead meat
Wholesome: Health-giving
Rudiment: Simple, basic or unfinished
Jotting: Writing quick, short notes
Auditors: The people who check the finances of a business