He was ashamed of it.

It amounted to being silly, simply silly.

He couldn't understand, couldn't account for it.

What possessed him to get a regular scare like this?
It was too absurd for words.

Sentiment ?--Yes, by all means a reasonable amount of it, well in hand and thus capable of translation--if the fancy took you--into nicely turned elegiac verse; but a scare, a scare pure and simple, wasn't to be tolerated! And he got up, standing astraddle to brace himself against the swinging of the train, while he stretched, settling himself in his clothes--pulled down the fronts of his waistcoat, buttoned the jacket of his light check suit; and, taking off his wide-awake, smoothed his soft, slightly curly russet-coloured hair with his hand.