HE BEHELD TWO WHITE FIGURESHE BEHELD TWO WHITE FIGURES
Hank did not wait to take a second look. He had seen enough. Why tarry? With one frantic bound he cleared the stairs. With another he crossed the vestibule, and with a third he reached the middle of the street. A few moments later he was in Hennessey & O'Brien's saloon calling hoarsely for alcoholic aid.
"Say, ol' Hank's got a fine start for the Fourth," the barkeep murmured confidentially to his employer a few moments later. "When a feller begins to see ghosts, it's time to cut it out."
True to his word Elder Jones returned to the church only a short time after he had left it, and although he found the lighted lantern at the head of the gallery stairs the sexton had gone. The elder was still awaiting his return when the two officers arrived.
And, as Gizzard had expected, Dan Lannon was one of them.
The ladder was replaced and a thorough searchof the steeple was made, but they were unable to find any traces of the culprits save a small size toothbrush that was found in the bell chamber.
"Why don't you cut a hole for this bellrope?" asked Dan Lannon as he attempted to replace the scuttle and found the rope hanging through the hatchway.
"There is a hole over to your left, there, about six feet," replied the elder. "Those little rascals must have pulled it out when they was up above there. But what I'd like to know is, how'd they ever git out of that there steeple!"
"They might have slid down the rope," suggested Dan.
"Never!" cried the elder. "Never! Not with Henry Morley watchin' right here in plain sight! But I reckon that somethin' happened here while I was gone! Must have or Henry wouldn't have quit his post! Probably he's out chasin' 'em now! Wait till we hear from Henry—wait till we hear from Henry."
The elder went home with menacing mutterings and noisy cane-rappings on the sidewalk; but the officers were more fortunate. They met Henry Morley on the street within fifteen minutes after they left the elder. Henry was in a very communicativemood, but the officers considered that he was more illuminated than illuminating.
"I most believe ol' Hank rung that there bell himself," allowed Dan Lannon. "I don't know as I ever saw him so lit up before."
"Likely he did," replied his brother sleuth. "More'n likely he did. When a feller gets so that he's seein' sperits floatin' round in the air, he's likely to ring anything."
Next morning when Henry Morley tendered his resignation and went to live with his daughter on a farm in the country, the officers felt that their deductions of the evening before had been amply verified.
But among those whose opinion really amounted to anything Sube and Gizzard were heroes.
Biscuit Westfall's mother was a prudent woman; she had laid down the law that Biscuit could not go in swimming until after he had learned to swim. But when Biscuit tried to explain this to his friends, he succeeded only in raising a shout of tantalizing laughter. And although Biscuit knew that it was wicked to allow his angry passions to arise, he seemed to be unable to control them. To stoop to the inelegant, the ridicule "got his goat."
"You ack like a lot of boneheads!" he burst out finally. "What's the matter of you, anyway?"
No words were said in reply, but the tantalizing laughter increased in volume.
"Go on, laugh!" he cried angrily. "And when you get through, laugh some more. What doIcare?"
Another outburst was the only response.
"What do I care how much you fools laugh?" he sneered, when once more he could make himself heard.
At this his tormenters began to roll about on the grass apparently quite helpless, and Biscuit, thoroughly disgusted, started for home.
"Hey, Biscuit!" Sube called after him teasingly. "Don't go home mad! Come on down 'in'; and we'll teach you how to swim on the way down!"
But Biscuit did not so much as glance back.
"Learnin' to swim 'fore he could go in the water!" howled Gizzard derisively.
"That'd be like learnin' to eat without grub," suggested Sube as the party moved off in the direction of the swimming-hole.
When Biscuit walked into the house a few minutes afterwards, he came upon his mother in conversation with a tall young man, who, had he lived up to his teeth, would have been prominent.
"Yes, madam," the caller was saying, "we have added a number of new courses to our curriculum and are now in a position to offer to the world, I might say, universal knowledge. We now cover, I might say, the entire field of human endeavor.
"Take for example the ordinary day of life. It begins the instant one is out of bed in the morning. First, take our morning exercises. They come in our excellent course inPhysical Culture and Muscle-building, with full directions how to increase yourweight a pound a day"—he glanced at Mrs. Westfall and observing her ample figure, added—"also, I might say, how to reduce your weight to any desired figure.
"Next in order would come our course inThe Bath; How to Give or Take One. After that would come our fashionable course,Dress; What to Wear and When. Follow this with our complete course inDomestic Science and Home Economy, which, I might say, contains a menu for three meals a day for three hundred and sixty-five days, or a full year. When the breakfast is prepared and on the table, our course inEtiquette and Table Manners, the Science of Good Form. This teaches one what to do when at the table; how to eat rare and unusual food; which fork to use; disposing of the discard; what to say, and many other difficult questions that are wont to arise at the table.
"Then comes the broad field of the day's work. Our courses cover, I might say, every known profession or employment from A to et cetera; fromAccounting to Zebra Raising. For the evening a large number of courses will be found available.Billiards, How to Become a Cue Expert;Bowling,Boxing;How to Train for the Ring;Dancing, Tango Taught in Ten Lessons—"
Mrs. Westfall began to show signs of distress, and the young man instantly changed his method of attack.
"Madam," he said suddenly, "what is your hobby? What are you most interested in?"
"Why—why missionary work, I think," she stammered.
"Ha! I have just the thing!How to Become a Missionary, Home or Foreign. This is a most illuminating course, madam. Listen to some of the chapter headings: How to Approach a Heathen, Outwitting the Cannibals, Three Methods of Destroying Idols, How to Prove to a Savage That he is Naked, Junk from Missionary Societies—What to Do With it, 101 Ways to Raise Missionary Funds, etc., etc."
"Or, we have a very fine course inPhilanthropy—the Science of Giving. This course contains a lecture by Carnegie, one by Hettie Green, one by William Jennings Bryan, one by Jess Willard—no, that's another course—"
"That's interesting; very interesting, but—"
"Then perhaps I could interest this manly little fellow in something. The Inter-State Correspondence Schools make a specialty of the interests of boys, I might say. Are you interested in athletics, mylad? Baseball? Boxing? Broad-jumping? Football? Sailing? Swimming?—"
Biscuit's interest was at once apparent.
"Plain and fancy swimming and diving, surfboarding, how to dodge the breakers, how to cheat the undertow, rescue and resuscitation—can you swim, my lad?"
"No, sir, but I wisht I could."
"We have a very fine course in swimming, madam. We positively guarantee to teach swimming in ten lessons or money refunded. All the latest strokes: overhand, trudgeon, crawl, shoulder-stroke—"
"No, not to-day," interrupted Mrs. Westfall. "It's too dangerous. I don't want my boy going into the water."
"Aw, mama, let me learn to swim!" whined Biscuit. "I'm the only boy in town that can't swim!"
"Karl! Be still! It's too dangerous!"
"Pardon me, madam, but it is no more dangerous than playing the piano! By our up-to-date system the student is taught to swim without so much as touching the tip of his finger to the water!"
"A lot of expensive apparatus, I suppose."
"No apparatus whatever! We teach it in the home! Only the smooth top of a kitchen table is required. Individual instruction by mail. And bear in mind that our iron-bound guarantee goes with every course. Money back if not satisfactory."
"How much does it cost?" she asked weakly.
"A mere trifle, madam, when we consider that itmay be the means of saving this little fellow's life!"
He laid a blank on the table and produced a fountain pen.
"But the expense?" insisted Mrs. Westfall as she saw him filling out the blank.
"Not enough for a person in your circumstances to consider— Sign there."
She took the pen and poised it uncertainly over the dotted line. "Before I sign this I ought to know—"
"A mere trifle—sign there—an inconsequential nothing—on the dotted line, please—two dollars—"
She signed her name.
"Two dollars a lesson, with our iron-bound guarantee. Thank you, madam! Many thanks! Keep the duplicate for your own reference. And I am leaving you a complete catalogue of our courses. You may be interested in something else later on. And now I will wish you—"
And thus it happened that Biscuit Westfall learned to swim.
Undoubtedly the proudest moment of his whole life was the one when he received his diploma from the Inter-State Correspondence School. To the unprejudiced eye this diploma looked more like thedocument that is drawn forth from the spy's boot in the war melodrama, than the sheepskin of a scholastic institution. It was decorated with stars and garters, wafers and lozenges; but to Biscuit's unsophisticated gaze it was quite the most important document since the Declaration of Independence.
If Biscuit had worked hard, so had his mother. She had taken a peculiar interest in demonstrating the truth of her oft-repeated assertion that one may learn to swim before going into the water.
She replaced without complaint the oilcloth on the kitchen table which had gone to pieces under Biscuit's efforts to master the scissors-kick. She sewed on in silence the numerous buttons that came off. She darned without comment the knees of many stockings that gave way before the edge of the table. And she paid with unaccustomed cheerfulness the cost of each lesson as it arrived. Whether Biscuit or his mother was prouder of the diploma when it came, would have been hard to tell.
The swimming lessons remained a dead secret until the course was completed and the diploma actually in the hands of the graduate. On one or two occasions Biscuit had been unable to suppress the intelligence that he knew something he wasn't going to tell, but as nobody had pressed him for particulars,the news came as a distinct surprise. And it was divulged on the same day that the diploma was received.
When the usual swim was proposed, instead of starting dolefully for home as had been his wont, Biscuit slapped the proponent on the back and cried:
"All right! I'm with you!"
"Huh?" asked Sube with a blank stare.
"Uh-huh, me! Why not?"
"Your mother gone away?"
"No, course she ain't!"
"Maybe you've learned to swim on dry land!" taunted Sube.
"I sure have!" replied Biscuit with a lofty swagger. "I can swim better'n any you fellers. I can do the trudgeon and the crawl and the scissors and—"
A howl of derision went up.
"Shut up a minute, you fellers!" shouted Sube. "I want to ask 'im some'pm."
Sube was not familiar with the terms Biscuit had so carelessly torn off, but he was none the less impressed. He had a strong suspicion that there was something back of it all.
"Who showed you how?" he asked, concealing with an effort the real extent of his interest.
"I took lessons!"
"Who of?"
"Oh, a perfessional."
"Yes, you did!"
"Well, I did, and I can prove it!"
"Yes, you can! How can you prove it?"
"I'll show you!" cried Biscuit as he started for home. "You wait right here till I get back!"
"He won't be back," predicted Cottontop; "let's get a move on us."
"Aw, we might as well wait around a few minutes," said Sube. "There's some'pm funny about this. He never acted like that before."
They had not long to wait before Biscuit was seen coming towards them on a run. In his hand he carried what looked like a small club, but proved on closer examination to be a mailing-tube. By means of a moistened finger that left Bertillon imprints wherever it touched, Biscuit extracted and unfurled before his skeptical companions the cherished roll of vegetable sheepskin.
"There!" he declared proudly. "I guess that'll prove it!"
"Di-plo-mer—" pronounced Sube.
"Diplomer's right!" boasted the graduate. "This here's my diplomer in plain and fancy swimmin' and divin'! It was rewarded to me by the Inter-State Cor'spon'ence School of Chicago, Ill'noise."
Sube was impressed, deeply impressed; but he was not convinced. "It's a diplomer all right," he admitted; "but can youswim?"
"Can Iswim?CanI? Say, you jus' watch me! Watch me!"
Biscuit gaily began to make swimming motions with his hands, as he capered about.
"But I mean in the water!" insisted Sube.
"So do I!" shouted Biscuit jubilantly.
"You don't mean to say that you took lessons in the water!"
"Oh, no-o-o-o! Course not!"
"Then where'd you learn?"
"Right on top of the kitchen table! You see—"
"Never mind about that," interrupted Sube with obvious relief. "We'll go right down to the swimmin'-hole and you can show us all your little tricks."
"Wait till I take my diplomer home!"
"Better not," cautioned Sube. "You might need it when you get in the water!"
"Is that so! Well, you jus' watch me!" shouted Biscuit as he started for home with his precious possession. "Watchme!"
As the boys passed the mill on the way to the swimming-hole, Gizzard, the painter's son, doubtless with inherited instinct, spied on a window sill by the loading platform a can of black paint and a brush, of which Sube, the lawyer's son, likewise with inherited instinct, took immediate possession so they wouldn't get knocked off on the ground, as he explained to Gizzard.
Sube tarried on the bridge long enough to leave Biscuit's misshapen initials on the white hand-rail, and then passed on to the pool, where he found most of the boys ready for the plunge, having stripped off their clothing as they walked.
Biscuit was in the throes of peeling off his undershirt, which had come so far as to envelop his head, but refused to come farther. As he struggled his bare white back arched invitingly before Sube's yearning eyes. The temptation was too strong for Sube. He yielded. And with one bold stroke of the brush he transformed the skin along Biscuit's spine from the purest Caucasian to the shiniest Senegambian.
With an angry bleat Biscuit tore off the shirt and turned on his complacent decorator. "You wipe that off'n me or I'll—!"
"Oh! Will you?—Well, all right. Turnaround and I'll wipe it off." And Sube calmly dipped his brush into the paint. "Turn around, Biscuit. Turn your back to Uncle Sube!"
"Don't you put any more of that nasty stuff on me!" bellowed Biscuit.
"But, Biscuit," pleaded Sube in the soft voice of a painless dentist about to extract a molar, "we'vegotto 'nitiate you, ain't we? Now ain't we, Biscuit?"
This conversation was designed to draw Biscuit's attention so that Gizzard might deliver a rear attack, which he did with complete success. For, an instant later Biscuit was extended face downward on the ground and securely held by his little friends while Sube stood over him, brush in hand, ready to complete his work of art.
"Watch me closely, ladies and gent'mun," Sube declaimed with solemnity, "for I am about to confer on this can'idate the Order of the Golden Fish. This name, ladies and gent'mun, is given to this can'idate on account of his bein' a trick swimmer. He claims he can do the creep, and the bludgeon, and the shears. In our future consuls he will be called 'The Pike,' ladies and gent'mun, note the name, 'The Pike!' I will now give him the stripes that belong to him!"
He at once proceeded to do so.
Biscuit howled lustily, but quite ineffectually. The stripes were given with extreme delicacy of handling, the body scheme following the pattern of his Patron Fish, and the legs being finished with a neat corkscrew design. When the rear exposure had been completed, the candidate was flopped over and finished in front according to the same general idea. After some discussion his face was done in a chaste checkerboard design that was really quite effective.
The great master had just reached the ears when Cathead who was holding one of the candidate's arms, relaxed his grip somewhat in order to make a survey of the nearly finished masterpiece. In a flash Biscuit wrenched loose the arm and struck the can of paint from Sube's hand, splashing the contents over his captors as well as himself. In another flash he was free and on his feet, and making good his escape.
Sube gave chase, wiping the paint from his face as he ran. The others followed for a short distance, but were soon turned back by their modesty.
At first Sube was actuated by motives of revenge. He was going to show Biscuit that nobody could throw a can of paint inhisface with impunity. But as Biscuit reached the highway and started for homethe episode assumed a different aspect. If Sube had put his thoughts in words they would have sounded something like this:
"Why, he's startin' for home!—The crazy nut!—Hear 'im holler!—He's scairt!—He's scairt to death!—He's scairt crazy!—He don't know what he is doin'!—I got to catch 'im!—What if we'd meet somebody!—What if I couldn't catch 'im!—If he should ever get to his mother!—"
The mere thought quickened Sube's pace. But at the same moment something quickened Biscuit's pace and turned on a little more noise. An automobile occupied by four young ladies came in sight. As it approached it drew out to the side of the road and stopped to watch the progress of the chase. Then it turned around and followed along like an observation train.
Pedestrians stepped aside and looked on in amazement at the strange sight, but fortunately not many were abroad.
As Biscuit came abreast of the Presbyterian Church he hesitated; and hearing his pursuer thundering along behind him, turned in, rushed up the steps, threw open the door and disappeared within, slamming the door behind him.
Sube noted this maneuver with a gasp of relief. "Now I've got 'im cornered!" he muttered approvingly as he leaped up the steps and burst into the church.
While these events had been taking place the members of the Coral Strand Missionary Circle were gathered at the church in solemn conclave. Mrs. Westfall, the president, had called a special meeting to deal with events of unusual importance that had brought out the entire membership.
The circle had lately been the object of a cowardly attack from the pen of one Bill Busby, who devoted nearly a column of the valued editorial space of theCitizento a whimsical commentary on foreign missions. Of course he had mentioned no names, but his poison-tipped innuendoes were too pointed to be overlooked.
On behalf of the Coral Strand Missionary Circle Mrs. Westfall had demanded a retraction of the alleged libelous statements, and an apology that should be given the same publicity as the defamatory matter.
Bill Busby had received her with extreme politeness. He had transferred his feet from the top ofthe desk to the seat of a chair; he had advanced his hat to the forward portion of his head; he had even gone so far as to remove his cigar from his mouth and lay it on the edge of the desk which already bore charred evidence of previous courtesies; but he refused to retract his statements. On the contrary he insisted that they were true. However, he had agreed to apologize, which he did in the next week's issue.
But Bill's apology was somewhat awkward. It appeared under the caption,Well-meaning but Mis-informed and Misguided Philanthropists, and sounded very much like betting the Coral Strand Missionary Circle a new hat that the $160 they had raised during the preceding year would have shriveled by the time it reached its destination until it would buy no more than $1.60 worth of shoes for the naked heathen babies.
The special meeting followed; for, regardless of the truth or falsity of Bill's charges, the cause of foreign missions had received a body-blow. The community—never over-enthusiastic on the subject—was now equipped with a full-fledged excuse for refusing to make any further contributions. A flimsy excuse, to be sure, but the flimsier an excuse is, the better it serves its purpose.
It soon proved to be the sense of the meeting that something of a public nature must be done to recover the lost prestige of the Coral Strand Missionary Circle, and to counteract the insidious effects of "that Busby man's dastardly attack on the fair name and fame of the circle."
Several plans were suggested and discussed and discarded before Mrs. Westfall considered that the psychological moment had arrived to spring on the meeting an idea that had come to her in the night, undoubtedly in answer to her earnest prayer for guidance, but at last she stood before her dear sisters, faintly flushed with enthusiasm and holding in her hand a pink folder with which she gesticulated from time to time as she made a few introductory remarks. Finally she opened the folder and read from beginning to end the descriptive matter concerning the Inter-State Correspondence School course inPhilanthropy—the Science of Giving. She read selected quotations from the world's most cheerful givers: from Andrew Carnegie's essay onGainful Giving, from Hettie Green's monograph onMaking Every Cent Countand from other of the authorities.
"My idea," she went on to explain as she laid aside the pink folder, "is to have the Coral Strand Missionary Circle as a body, take this course, so thathereafter we shall be known as a society of Graduate Philanthropists!"
A storm of discussion followed, but above its raging the nasal tones of Mrs. Electa Mandeville could be heard distinctly.
"They're fakes! They're all alike! They're fakes! They're fakes!" she repeated over and over.
Gradually the others subsided and at last Mrs. Mandeville had the floor all to herself, whereupon she shook a long bony index-finger at the president and cried shrilly:
"I tell you they're fakes! All fakes! I've had experience with 'em and Iknow! Look at my son-in-law! He answered an ad in a magazine that said 'Be a Civil Engineer,' and he took a course that cost me sixty dollars! Andlookat him! Why, he ain't even civil, to say nothing of being an engineer!"
"I will personally vouch for the reliability of the Inter-State Correspondence School," replied Mrs. Westfall tartly. "And besides, they give an iron-bound guarantee of satisfaction or all money refunded."
"I wouldn't trust any of 'em!" cried Mrs. Mandeville excitedly. "They take your money and then all they do is send you a lot of rubbish through themail and try to sell you text books and equipment or get you to take some other course—!"
"Some of theinferiorschools might do such things," interrupted Mrs. Westfall icily; "but not the Inter-State! As I said, I will personally vouch for—"
"Personally? Did you say?" snapped Mrs. Mandeville. "Personally? How could you vouch for thempersonallyunless you have had dealings with them?"
"I said 'personally,' Sister Mandeville," returned the president, "and I meant personally! Ihavehad dealings with them."
The Coral Strand Missionary Circle was on tip-toe. It was confidently expected that Mrs. Westfall was about to divulge the details of some of her secret efforts at self-improvement, and it was something of a disappointment when she told merely of Karl's triumphant conquest of the art of swimming without going outside of her own kitchen.
As she paused for rhetorical effect the irrepressible Mrs. Mandeville inquired,
"But how do you know he can swim?"
There was a suspicion of a titter from the rear seats; but Mrs. Westfall froze this levity with a glare as she retorted:
"He is, at this very moment, down in swimming with his little playmates!"
"But if he's never tried it in the water, how do you know he can—" began Mrs. Mandeville, but before she could finish her question there was a tremendous slam from the front door, and Biscuit appeared in their midst.
For a moment he was taken for an apparition of the Evil One; and when he fled bawling into his mother's arms he brought his worthy parent under momentary suspicion of intimacy with striped devils.
But when she began to pat his naked back and murmur: "There, ther-r-r-e! Mother's boy is all safe!" and other similar expressions of assurance, the horrified spectators began to grasp the situation, and restored her good character.
It was some time before Biscuit could utter intelligible words, although his mother fancied she heard among his tearful babblings the names of several fish. But when he managed to convey the idea that there was some kind of an initiation, she began to understand his highly decorated exterior. Then suddenly it dawned on her that the painted decorations were the only ones that he had on. In that panicky moment she wrapped him in her best white shawl and started to conduct him towards asmall door that led into the session-room, when Mrs. Mandeville again entered the arena.
"This," she exclaimed sarcastically, "might be a good time to get at thetruthabout those wonderful swimming lessons!"
Mrs. Westfall stopped in her tracks. "Perhaps it would," she said with a murderous look at Mrs. Mandeville; and, turning Biscuit around so that he faced the meeting she asked in a wheedling tone: "Youcouldswim all right, couldn't you, dearie?"
"I du-du-don't know!" he blubbered.
"Don't know!" she demanded giving his shoulder an angry shake. "Don't know!Whydon't you know?"
"I—uh—uh—ain't been in the wu-wu-water yet!"
A crimson flush spread over Mrs. Westfall's scowling visage as she cried, "Oh! You haven't, eh! You haven't!"
She seized him by one of his unornamented ears and marched him down the aisle towards the front door, where she relieved him of the shawl and pointing a trembling finger at the door almost screamed: "Get out of that door!... Go down to that swimming-hole just as fast as your legs will carryyou, and don't you come back till you'vefound outwhether you can swim or not!"
And while the question of taking a correspondence course inPhilanthropy—the Science of Givingwas being gently but everlastingly laid on the table, Biscuit was retracing his steps to the swimming-hole with less precipitation and much more modesty than he had left it. More than once he longed for the cartoonist's favorite barrel as he dodged from tree to tree to escape the prying gaze of an inconsiderate public.
Fate dealt him a cruel blow when he sought to avoid meeting two old ladies by slipping behind a clump of lilac bushes in Rude's front yard; for from underneath the very bushes themselves came the shocked observation of the voice he loved best in all the world:
"I don't knowwhatgame you think you're playin', Karl Westfall, but it's not a very nice game! I think you're horrid anyway—!"
But Biscuit did not tarry to hear more. He fled. Nor did he stop again until he had reached the swimming-hole, which he did shortly after Sube's return from his unsuccessful pursuit. Sube had just finished telling how he had burst into the church—andburst out again without being observed, when the sound of footsteps was heard on the path.
"Hark! There's somebody after us already! We'll get—"
Then Biscuit came into view.
As one they flew to welcome him.
"Good for you, old kid! How'd you get away from all those old hens? Come 'ere, let's see if I can't wipe off some of that ol' paint with my undershirt—"
It took the underwear of the entire party to make Biscuit presentable, and meanwhile he had given an account of the proceedings at the church.
"She never noticed the paint at all!" he declared. "She jus' asked me if I could swim, and when I said I didn't know, she sent me back to find out."
"You'll find out all right!" came a gruff voice from behind him.
Turning around, Biscuit beheld Seth Bissett, the terror of the town, who had received his preliminary training in a reform school and had afterwards finished in the penitentiary. The other boys dived into the pool and swam to safety on the farther side of the creek; but Biscuit, forgetting for the moment his theoretical mastery of the deep, attempted to effect his escape by land, and ran into the armsof Warren Sours, the ally and familiar friend of Seth Bissett.
"How many times I gotta tell you little rats to keep away from this swimmin'-hole?" cried Seth with the assistance of several ever-ready strong words, as he roughly grasped Biscuit by the shoulder and faced him around. "Can you swim, bo?"
"Yes, sir," replied Biscuit proudly, little suspecting what was to follow.
"That's blankety-blank lucky!" the big fellow went on, suddenly catching Biscuit by an ankle and a wrist, "because now you're goin' to have a chanct."
Warren seized him by the other ankle and wrist. And as they swung him back and forth as in the game called "beetle and wedge" Seth counted:
"One!... Two!... Thr-e-e!"
Biscuit went sailing through the air and struck far out in the pool with a tremendous splash; then disappeared from view. Without waiting for him to come up, Seth and Warren hastily snatched up the clothes that were lying about on the grass, and flinging them into the pool, made off into the bushes without so much as a glance at the place where Biscuit had gone down.
Up to the time that Biscuit struck the water he had uttered no outcry. He had perfect confidence in his ability to swim and accordingly took the affair in the light of a rough joke. But when he came to the surface after his initial ducking he uttered a piercing shriek and went down again.
"He can't swim a stroke!" cried Sube as he hurriedly swam towards the spot where Biscuit had disappeared.
When Biscuit came up the second time Sube grabbed him by the hair, and with the assistance of Gizzard towed him to shore. He was soon stretched out on the grassy slope, head downwards to insure better drainage. And even before the water was all out of him he gulped out spasmodically:
"I can swim all right, only they threw me in upside down! I ain't learned to swim that way yet!"
"You're all right, Biscuit!" Sube assured him. "You can swim like a fish!"
"Sure I can!... Didn't I swim to shore?"
"Well, you're here, ain't you? How could you get here if you didn't swim? When you go home you tell your mother you can swim like a fish, or she'll never let you come down here again."
"Well, I can, can't I?"
"Sure you can; just exactly."
"Then that's what I'll tell her."
"And you better not say an'thing about those big fellers helpin' you into the water, either," Sube advised.
"Oh, I have to tell her everybody I play with!" exclaimed Biscuit piously, "if she asks me."
"All right," muttered Sube, "if you call that playin'."
"But what'll I tell her 'bout my clo's bein' all wet?" asked Biscuit.
"Tell her you left 'em too near the bank, and they got pushed in—"
"Oh! I wouldn't tell my mother a lie for anything!"
"Lie? That's no lie! If you'd left 'em back there in the bushes they wouldn't of got in the water, now would they?"
"Oh, no! Not if I'd left 'em way back there."
"So youdidleave 'em too near the water, jus' as I said!"
Biscuit blinked in wordless approval.
That evening while Seth Bissett and Warren Sours with a number of their associates were enjoying their evening dip, a hooked stick slowly reached out from the nearby shrubbery, and having become attached to one of the many articles of wearing apparel lying on the grass, drew it gently into the bushes. After a moment it was restored in the same way and another article taken. After this had gone on for some time the stick disappeared and was seen no more.
When the swimmers came out of the water at the approach of darkness it was apparent that something had gone wrong. An aroma that could not be wholly disregarded made known its undesirable presence. At first it seemed to be located somewhere about the grass plot, but as they finished dressing and started for home they discovered that it was apparently everywhere.
On the way Seth Bissett tarried for a friendly chat at the gate of a certain young lady, but found her unusually distant. So much so that in spite of his innocence of the cause, he deemed it prudent not to prolong his visit. Warren Sours went home; and as he entered the house with a jocular remark about the contaminated state of the atmosphere hewas informed that until his arrival it had been quite satisfactory. Retirement to the stable followed; and with the aid of a lantern he finally found in each of his hip pockets a pasty smear, that from the presence of a small piece of tinfoil in addition to certain other deductions, he took to be the remnants of a piece of superannuated limburger cheese. Further evidences were found inside his hatband, and under the innersole of each of his shoes, but not until several days later.
Subsequent inquiry developed that none of the persons at the pool that night had been spared, although no two were attacked in the same place. Two days elapsed before Seth Bissett found a thin layer of the "dreadful" inside the lining of his favorite necktie, and in the meantime he had nearly hated himself to death. It was a week before Chuck Smith located a smear in the back of his watchcase, and during all that time he was haunted by a suspicion that he was no longer good company for man or beast. After changing his entire wardrobe several times in an effort to forget that fatal swim, Bob Beach found when he had occasion to use his purse a few days later that all his money, though honestly earned, had become badly tainted.
Nobody seemed to be able to account for the mysterious attack. Some of the swimmers accused each other, only to arouse vigorous denial, and there was no proof. But Seth Bissett had his suspicions, and they were well founded.
If Mrs. Cane had known of the pollution that swept over the swimming-hole that night, she would doubtless have supposed that Sube was attacked in common with the others; for he came home reeking of a loathsome odor that he was unable to account for. But, of course, Mrs. Cane heard little of the swimming-hole gossip.
"Whathaveyou been doing!" she exclaimed as Sube came into the room.
"Never mind about that," growled his father. "Where are you going just about as fast as you can get there!"
Sube looked from one of his parents to the other in utter surprise. "What have I done now?" he asked.
"Heaven only knows!" Mr. Cane exploded. "But do get out of this room with it!"
"With what?" asked the amazed boy, holding out his empty hands. "I ain't got an'thing."
Mr. Cane mangled the air with gestures of futility while his wife laid aside her embroidery and stood up.
"You've got something on you that doesn't smell very good. Come with—"
"Doesn't smell very good!" repeated Mr. Cane sarcastically. "Of all the feeble language! I can describe it for you in one short word!"
"Sam-u-el! Don't be vulgar! You run along to the bathroom, Sube. We'll try a little ammonia."
"Ammonia!" jeered Mr. Cane. "Am-mo-nia! You'd better boil him in muriatic acid and bury him for three weeks! A little ammonia," he repeated as he stood up and opened another window. Then his curiosity got the better of him. "Sube," he called, "I want to ask you a few questions—but you needn't come back here! Stop right there where you are."
A scowl of suspicion came over Sube's face as he halted and turned towards the author of his existence.
"Where have you been this evening?" his father began.
"Nowheres—jus' playin' round."
"Round where? Round what?"
"Jus' round here everyplace. I couldn't tell—"
"Well, tell me one place."
"Sir?—Why out in the back yard."
"Where else?"
"Why,—we went over in Bowers' back yard."
A ray of light came over Mr. Cane's stern visage as he asked, "You weren't playing garbage-man, were you?"
"No! sir!" exclaimed Sube with a look of outraged innocence.
"Where else did you play?" asked his father.
"Where else?—Why—out in the street."
"Well, where else?"
"Over on the back street."
"Well," Mr. Cane was glowering now, "where else?"
"Over on the other street by the coalyard."
"And what game were you playing in all these different streets?" demanded the inquisitor who was now showing signs of irritation.
"Oh, different games. First we'd play one game awhile, and then another—"
"You weren't playing sewer inspector, were you?"
"No, sir," muttered the boy as he made a mental note of two games he had never tried, but would at the first opportunity.
"Haven't you any idea where you got into this unspeakable effluvium?" demanded his father with ill-restrained petulance.
"No, sir; not unless I might of got it up by thechurch. I was playin' round up there part of the time, and I noticed some'pm smelled kind o' funny, but I couldn't find out—"
"All right. Go on. Get the stuff off from you if you can—but don't come in here again to-night!"
Sube moved on to the bathroom, where he found that his mother had drawn a bowl of hot water into which she had put a generous quantity of ammonia and a scrubbing-brush. But after superintending the operation for a short time from a point over near the window, she retired, leaving Sube to his own devices. As soon as she was gone he let out the ammonia water on the ground that it interfered with his breathing, and hurriedly rinsing his hands in plain cold water wiped them on the bath mat (as his father afterward discovered) and slipped down the back stairs to rejoin his companions in the yard for a good ol' game of rat tail.
The following day Sube Cane made a pleasing discovery. He was strolling along the back street that bordered his father's garden when he was confronted by a vision of gorgeous beauty. He halted in amazement.
"Well, I'll be jiggled!" he gasped ecstatically. "I'd like to know when they put that up! It wasn't there this morning. There was nuthin' but a lot of patent med'cine ads."
And he gazed in rapture at the colorful announcement of the coming of Baylum & Barney's Greatest Show on Earth. At first a lady in fleshings doing a toe-dance on the back of a pinto percheron held his attention, but he was soon won from her by the Human Fly, who was depicted as in the act of walking on the ceiling. And it was not long before the Human Fly gave way to the Only Genuine Blood-Sweating Behemoth of Holy Writ Now in Captivity. Then Sube truly lost his heart.
The longer he gazed at the behemoth the morehe admired it. It was, indeed, a case of love at first sight. Under his fascinated scrutiny the shifty eyes became kind; the broad ugly nose and cavernous mouth seemed to smile at him; the wrinkled hide looked as soft as a baby's skin. How he would have liked one for a pet!
In his mind as he stood there a definite idea assumed form; he would never be a lawyer when he grew up. Nothing short of a showman could satisfy him now. The thought of attending his own show every day was enticing. The informality of the circus life appealed to him. There would be no dining table to keep his elbows off from; no napkin to fold up. When he got hungry he would simply help himself to a few glasses of red lemonade and all the hot dogs he wanted, and no time would be wasted waiting for other people to be served. And when he led the parade, no common milk-white horses for him; he would train and drive a pair of good ol' blood-sweaters!
Then another idea struck him; a big one. Why not begin the business at once! He realized that for a time, at least, he would have to be hampered by living in a house and eating at a table; but there was nothing to prevent his starting his show in a small way. A third inspiration showed him how hecould obtain a behemoth for immediate use. And by the time he had reached home his plans were well under way.