in the very near
future I shall be seized with an uncontrollable longing to wear a green
plush hat, and I shall enter a shop and ask for one, and the man behind
the counter will look at me quizzically, and, after a long search, bring
me the only plush hat in his shop, and I shall carry it home in shame,
and put it away in my closet, and mourn over the resolution that came
too late.

You must not imagine that Howard King and I are conservatives. We do not
hold fast to one thing, or even hold fast to the old. We move forward,
but at a pace so curiously regulated as to bring us to the front door
just when most people are leaving by the back. I have worn every shape
of linen collar that the best-dressed men have worn during the last
fifteen years; but I have worn them from three to six months late. I
became passionately fond of bicycling shortly after all the bicycle
factories began the exclusive production of automobiles. I am not very
fond of automobiles, but I shall be, I know, when aeroplanes come into
extensive use. It is only in the last few months that I have discovered
how amusing a toy the Teddy bear makes. And this is true of fashions in
games and of fashions in language. I have no fundamental objections to
slang, but I always pick up the bit of slang that most people are just
discarding.

I recall, for instance, how, up in the hills last summer, the woods and
glens were echoing to the sound, half a howl and half a screech, of "Oh,
you!" addressed at quarter-minute intervals to every object, animate or
inanimate, that came within the howler's vision or thought. This
particular bit of gutter-slang induced a peculiar irritation. It seemed
to me utter desecration that this quickening beauty of hill and sky and
river and green woods, which should have stirred young hearts to
madrigals and chorals, should resound to the blatant, shrieking
vulgarity of Lobster Square. I do not mind confessing that at times my
feelings towards the innocent young barbarians bordered close on murder.
Until--until, alas! one September morning, after all the guests were
gone and I alone remained; that morning I woke with the poison in my
soul, and I walked down to the river for my bath, and, coming across the
farmer's herd of cows halfway down the hillside, saluted them, before I
knew what I was doing, with that horrid, that unspeakable--I blush now
to think of it. When I told Howard King, he admitted humbly that after
holding out for year