As I had not got my ideas clear for the next chapter of the novel, I went out for a walk after finishing correspondence and oddments, and walked to the XXI Gallery in Durham House Street, Strand. I found my idea all right. The gallery is very dark, appropriately in the circumstances as it has an exhibition of Cosmo Clark's pictures of the Black Country. I wasn't awfully pleased with them, but I bought one because I had known Cosmo as a baby and was an old friend of his father's.
I walked all the way to the Savoy Hotel for the dinner of the Other Club. Birkenhead came in, and we were very affable to one another, and everybody laughed about the just-finished scrap between us in the Daily Mail. Afterwards he was most friendly and asked me to lunch with him alone. Reading was in the chair and the dinner was the most agreeable that I remember of this Club. I sat next to Charles Masterman and opposite Alf Mason, and we had a great time. Afterwards I went and sat next to Jim Garvin. He talked exceedingly well, and is full of knowledge and ideas. Churchill and Jack Seely came in very late, long after dinner. Churchill said to me: "Receive the congratulations of Tom Hogarth" (over my row with Birkenhead). There was a great deal of "Raingo" throughout the evening.
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