As I say, when people talk of "Yule-logs and things," it is not the Yule-logs that I object to. It is the things. Nasty cold things like clean shirts and collars and bedroom door-handles—there ought to be hot water in bedroom door-handles—nasty cold things that make one say "Ugh." I have a theory that the word "Ugh" was invented on some such morning as this. Previously people had been contented with noises like "Ouch" and "Ouf" and "Ur-r," though they realised how inadequate they were. And then one day, one very cold 0⁄40 day, inspiration came to the frenzied brain of a genius, and he wrote down that single exquisite heart-cry and hurried it off to the printer. People knew then that the supreme mating of sound and sense, which we have agreed to call poetry, had once more been achieved.
But I have wandered a little from the Serpentine. Has it ever struck you what people who bathe in the Serpentine on days like this are like during the rest of the year?
Suppose it is a balmy spring morning, a mild temperate afternoon in early summer, a soft autumn twilight when everyone else is happy and content, what are they doing then? Positively bathed in perspiration, groaning under the burden of the sun, mopping their shining foreheads and putting cabbage-leaves under their hats. And then at last comes the day they have longed for and looked forward to all through the twelve-months' heat-wave, a beautiful day forty degrees below the belt. They spring out of bed and fling wide the casement. That is what they intend to do, at least. As a matter of fact, of course, it is stuck, and they have to bash it out with a bolster, sending the icicles clinking into the basement. "Delicious!" they say, leaning out and breathing deep. Then they chip a piece of ice out of the water-jug with a hammer, rub it on their faces and begin to shave.
They shave in their cotton pyjamas, with bare feet, humming a song. Then they put on old flannels and a blazer, wrap a towel round their neck, light a cigarette, pick up a mattock and stroll to Hyde Park. When they get there they feloniously break the King's ice. Then they "ugh." The mere thought of these people ughing with a great splash into the Serpentine makes me feel ill. When I think of them afterwards sitting lazily on the bank and letting the blizzard dry their hair, basking in the snow for an hour or two and reading their morning paper, and every now and then throwing a snowball or a piece of "ugh" into the water, I hate them. Nobody ought to be allowed to bathe in the Serpentine on days like this except the swans, who paddle all night to hold the ice at bay. I wonder if I could get a swan and keep it in the water-jug.
Half-past eight? Yes, I did hear, thank you. I am really going to get up very soon now.
What I am going to do is to make one tiger-like leap—tiger-like leap, I say—for the bathroom door and turn the hot-water tap full on until the whole of the upper part of the house is filled with steam.
I am going to do it this very moment. I—yes—ugh.
Now I come to think of it a tiger-like leap would be quite the wrong idea. I am glad I did not do it. Tigers are not cold when they leap. "Tiger, tiger, burning bright." Tiger, tiger——
What did you say? A quarter to nine? What? And the water-pipes frozen? Are they?
Thankugh.