But the preposterous buoyancy of youth! The cold water that splashed
away the clamminess of bed washed, too, the more vapoury fears from
George's brain; the chilly splashings that braced his system to a
tingling glow braced also his mind against the pummellings of his
position. Drying, he caught himself whistling; catching himself in
such an act he laughed ruefully to think how little ground he had for
good spirits.
But the whistling prevailed. This ridiculous buoyancy of youth! What
luckless pigs are we who moon and fret and grow besodden with the
waters of our misfortunes! This cheeky corkiness of youth! Shove it
under the fretted sea of trouble, and free it will twist, up it will
bob. Weight it and drop it into the deepest pool; just when it should
be drowned, pop! and it is again merrily bobbing upon the surface.
It is a sight to make us solemn-souled folk disgustingly irritated. We
are the Marthas--trudging our daily rounds, oppressed with sense of
the duties that must be done, with the righteous feeling of the
hardness of our lot; and these light-hearts, these trouble-shirkers,
this corkiness of youth, exasperate us enormously. But the grin is on
their side.
The whistling prevailed. By the time George was dressed he had put his
position into these words--these feather-brained, corky, preposterous
words: "By gum!" said George, brushing his hair, "by gum! I'm in a
devil of a hole!"
The decision summed up a cogitation that showed him to be in a hole
indeed, but not in so fearsome a pit as he had at first imagined.
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