Rather an amusing thing happened while dressing that morning. I was very
cold when I got back into the boat, and, in my hurry to get my shirt on,
I accidentally jerked it into the water. It made me awfully wild,
especially as George burst out laughing. I could not see anything to
laugh at, and I told George so, and he only laughed the more. I never
saw a man laugh so much. I quite lost my temper with him at last, and I
pointed out to him what a drivelling maniac of an imbecile idiot he was;
but he only roared the louder. And then, just as I was landing the
shirt, I noticed that it was not my shirt at all, but George's, which I
had mistaken for mine; whereupon the humour of the thing struck me for
the first time, and I began to laugh. And the more I looked from
George's wet shirt to George, roaring with laughter, the more I was
amused, and I laughed so much that I had to let the shirt fall back into
the water again.
"Ar'n't you - you - going to get it out?" said George, between his
shrieks.
I could not answer him at all for a while, I was laughing so, but, at
last, between my peals I managed to jerk out:
"It isn't my shirt - it's YOURS!"
I never saw a man's face change from lively to severe so suddenly in all
my life before.
