self.

Mr. Beebe thought he was not.

"Water's wonderful!" cried Freddy, prancing in.

"Water's water," murmured George. Wetting his hair first--a sure sign of
apathy--he followed Freddy into the divine, as indifferent as if he were
a statue and the pond a pail of soapsuds. It was necessary to use his
muscles. It was necessary to keep clean. Mr. Beebe watched them, and
watched the seeds of the willow-herb dance chorically above their heads.

"Apooshoo, apooshoo, apooshoo," went Freddy, swimming for two strokes in
either direction, and then becoming involved in reeds or mud.

"Is it worth it?" asked the other, Michelangelesque on the flooded
margin.

The bank broke away, and he fell into the pool before he had weighed the
question properly.

"Hee-poof--I've swallowed a pollywog, Mr. Beebe, water's wonderful,
water's simply ripping."

"Water's not so bad," said George, reappearing from his plunge, and
sputtering at the sun.

"Water's wonderful. Mr. Beebe, do."

"Apooshoo, kouf."

Mr. Beebe, who was hot, and who always acquiesced where possible, looked
around him. He could detect no parishioners except the pine-trees,
rising up steeply on all sides, and gesturing to each other against
the blue. How glorious it was! The world of motor-cars and rural Deans
receded inimitably. Water, sky, evergreens, a wind--these things not
even the seasons can touch, and surely they lie beyond the intrusion of
man?

"I may as well wash too"; and soon his garments made a third little pile
on the sward, and he too asserted the wonder of the water.

It was ordinary water, nor was there very much of it, and, as Freddy
said, it reminded one of swimming in a salad. The three gentlemen
rotated in the pool breast high, after the fashion of the nymphs in
Gotterdammerung. But either because the rains had given a freshness or
because the sun was shedding a most glorious heat, or because two of the
gentlemen were young in years and the third young in spirit--for some
reason or other a change came over them, and they forgot Italy and
Botany and Fate. They began to play. Mr. Beebe and Freddy splashed each
other. A little deferentially, they splashed George. He was quiet: they
feared they had offended him. Then all the forces of youth burst out. He
smiled, flung himself at them, splashed them, ducked them, kicked them,
muddied them, and drove them out of the pool.

"Race you round it, then," cried Freddy, and they raced in the sunshine,