Well, it was a bitter sort of afternoon and growing late. The annoyance of Bogie (an enthusiastic puppy) at missing his walk might appropriately be solaced with portions of "Dog's Delight." It's a large home-made bun thing which used to delight me as well as Bogie's mother in days gone by.
"I ought to warn you," said Woggles as we walked across the fields, "that Mother and Dad are out to-day. I expect your dog'll have to take acting rank as chaperon."
"By the way," I said, "you don't know each other, do you?" I called Bogie, who was giving a vivid imitation of a cavalry screen protecting our advance, and made him sit up and pretend to be begging. "Now fix your eyes on the kind lady," I commanded. "Woggles—Bogie: Bogie—Woggles. Two very nice people." Bogie barked, put out his tongue and let the wind blow his left ear inside out. Woggles laughed in that excellent way she has.
At the Rectory she sang to me even better than she used to; the "Delight" was an achievement, Bogie being most agreeably surprised; there was a glow of firelight such as I love, and a vast comfortable chair. I felt lazy and very happy.
"This tea idea of yours was simply an inspiration. I don't know when I've been so pleased with myself and existence generally. At the moment my moral is as high as Mount Everest."
"Yes, I noticed something like that," Woggles agreed. "More tea? It's only about your fifth cup." Suddenly serious, she went on: "I wonder—is there much to be happy about just now? Dad thinks not; and so do I, rather. Do you want to talk about it, or would you rather find faces in the fire?"
"Please I want to talk about it."
"Carry on then. Fortify yourself with that last bit of 'Delight.'"
In spite of this reinforcement I found it wasn't so very easy to begin.
"Well," I said slowly, "I expect the foundation of my joie de vivre is a great relief that the War's over. Lots of troops celebrated that with song and dance and so forth on November 11th and subsequent nights; I'm spreading it over a much longer time. In a way it's like having a death sentence repealed, for millions of us. Not the heroic spirit, is it?—but there you are."