HEELS UP AND HEAD DOWN.
A stout old gentleman was enjoying the luxury of a salt-water bath in the bay, a short distance from where I was fishing. As he was a poor swimmer—notwithstanding he had a good supply of blubber—he attached a couple of inflated air-bags to his shoulders, by means of a string under his arm-pits. During his splashing about, and his repeated endeavors to strike out like Cassius bearing Cæsar from the troubled waters of the Tiber, the floats changed their position from his shoulders to his hips. This change he was not prepared for, and the result was distressing in the extreme. He immediately commenced sinking—as sailors say—by the head. In vain would he make long and desperate reaches toward the bottom, striving to anchor his feet in the soft sand. Just as his toes would touch the bed below, the buoyancy of the supports and undercurrent combined would prevail against him.
Up would come his pedal extremities to the surface, and consequently down he would go, head first, like a pearl diver, grasping at the pebbles beneath. After making a commotion in the water like the screw of a tug boat, which brought small crabs and crawfish to the top with dismembered limbs, he would manage to get his head above water long enough to get a mouthful of fresh air, but retire immediately below to digest it. Some Italian fishermen, running in from the offing with their day’s catch, sighted the old gentleman beating off the Point. They mistook him for a “devil fish,” or some other odd-looking inhabitant of the briny deep, disporting itself in the sheltered waters of the bay. Getting out their hooks and harpoons ready for action, and changing course, they bore down with all possible speed in the direction of the singular monster.
The wind was blowing quite fresh, and it wasn’t long until the Italians came nigh enough to ascertain the real state of affairs, and rescue the unfortunate swimmer from his perilous situation. The fishermen rolled the old gentleman over a keg they had in the boat for half an hour, before his stomach could be emptied of its washy load and breathing rendered easy. When sufficiently relieved to admit of speech, the bather gave his rescuers to understand that in future the tide might ebb and flow, be warm as milk new drawn from the cow, and tranquil as a frozen pond, but a common bath-tub would be rivers, lakes—yea, oceans—to him during the remainder of his natural life.