Mrs. Larue laughed and said she thought the habit was too strong to be broken easily, but that she hoped they would try.
"We do talk rather—rather—well, you know," said Polly, when the children found themselves alone on the porch. "I'm going to try not to say a word about any one after this, unless it is something nice."
"Tell about the races, Artie," urged Jess. "When are they going to be and where?"
Artie explained that the races were an annual affair, that people paid to see them, and that the money was turned over to the life guards.
"Like a benefit," said Margy wisely.
There were "all kinds of classes," to quote Artie. The expert swimmers swam for distance and speed and tried to establish records. There were classes for beginners and for children under ten. There was a "novice" class for those who had never tried to swim a stroke. There was a class for fat swimmers. Artie suggested that Ward enter this.
"I'll bet it's a heap of fun," said Jess. "Lots of the swimming will be a joke and people just go in it for a good time and to make money for the life guards. I'll tell you what! Let's each one of us enter something. One of us ought to get some kind of prize."
"If six of us go in, we must surely win something for the Riddle Club," added Fred.
They found the rules and regulations for the meet posted in the post-office and an eager group studying them. As Jess had surmised, the swimming itself was more or less of a joke, and the funnier spectacle the swimmers made, the better the audience liked it. The prizes ranged all the way from a ten dollar gold piece for the fastest time in the expert class, to one dollar gold pieces for the children's events. A charge of ten cents was made for each registration, and Artie was so sure that he was going to capture a prize that he made Fred loan him the ten cents and arranged that it was to be counted as his "dues" for the next club meeting and not charged against him.