“Why? You haven’t got a clot on your brain, have you?”
“Oh, Great Scott, no! It’s purely mental, my madness.”
“Well, I think you’re talking tosh,” said Alan firmly. “If you go on thinking you’re mad, you will be mad, and then you’ll be sorry. So shut up trying to horrify me, because if you really were mad I should bar you,” he added coolly.
“All right,” said Michael, a little subdued, as he always was, by Alan’s tranquil snubs. “All right. I’m not mad, but I’m excitable.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be,” said Alan.
“I can’t help my character, can I?” Michael demanded.
“You’re not a girl,” Alan pointed out.
“Men have very strong emotions often,” Michael argued.
“They may have them, but they don’t show them. Just lately you’ve been holding forth about the rotten way in which everybody gets hysterical over this war. And now you’re getting hysterical over yourself, which is much worse.”
“Damn you, Alan, if I didn’t like you so much I shouldn’t listen to you,” said Michael, fiercely pausing.