Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Be careful how you swim

          When girls are floating in warm water, dreaming of the man they adore, it sometimes happens that there comes to them a sort of exaltation of the soul which demands physical expression. It came now to Agnes Flack. God, the way she looked at it, was in His heaven and all right with the world, and it seemed to her that something ought to be done about it. And as practically the only thing you can do in the way of physical expression in the water is to splash, she splashed. With arms and feet she churned up great fountains of foam, at the same time singing a wordless song of ecstasy.
          The trouble about doing that sort of thing when swimming is that people are apt to be misled. Agnes Flack's was one of those penetrating voices which sound like the dawn express letting off steam at a level crossing, and in the number which she had selected for rendition there occurred a series of high notes which she held with determination and vigour.  It is not surprising, therefore, that a passing stranger who was cleaving the waves in her vicinity should have got his facts twisted. A moment later Agnes, in the middle  of a high note, was surprised to find herself gripped firmly beneath the arms and towed rapidly shorewards.

(from Feet of Clay, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

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