You mustn't be so bad.

Water won't hurt you." Tom was a trifle disconcerted.

The basin was refilled, and this time he stood over it a little while, gathering resolution; took in a big breath and began.

When he entered the kitchen presently, with both eyes shut and groping for the towel with his hands, an honorable testimony of suds and water was dripping from his face.

But when he emerged from the towel, he was not yet satisfactory, for the clean territory stopped short at his chin and his jaws, like a mask; below and beyond this line there was a dark expanse of unirrigated soil that spread downward in front and backward around his neck.