CHAPTER IX
"When I feel gloomy, I'm good and gloomy," said William to Lucien Torrance one sunshiny afternoon in June, as they sat together in Whimple's office, their respective "bosses" being out "on business," another way of saying that they had gone to the baseball match.
"This is one day when I'm gloomy, and I just gotter gloom—it ain't no good your buttin' in and telling me to cheer up and all that kinder rot. No, sir, I just gotter gloom till it's all over."
"What have you got to 'gloom' for to-day?" ventured Lucien, "it's a bright, cheery day; the sun is——"
"The sun might be the moon for all I care," interrupted William impatiently. "I got up gloomy, and likely as not I'll go to bed gloomy. Gee! this is a rotten world sometimes."
"Maybe you're ill," suggested Lucien.
"Ill nothing—don't you ever feel gloomy?"
"Not without good cause."
"Well, I'd just hate to be you. Sometimes a song, or somebody humming a tune, sets me gloomin', or something I read, or sometimes it ain't nothing at all that I could tell. It just comes and sticks around till I don't know whether I'd sooner be a gloomer or a merry-ha-ha feller, with a smile for everybody and everything. I uster get that way in school sometimes, and I hated school bad enough, except the play time, but I sometimes wish I was back again."
"Why?"