“Good night!” laughed Herb. “What have I started here, anyway? We’ll all be candidates for the lunatic asylum if we keep this up very long.”
“Oh, well, after being around with you so long, we’d feel right at home,” said Jimmy sarcastically.
“I haven’t any doubt you’d feel at home, all right,” retorted Herb. “I’ll bet you’d feel at home right away.”
“You bet I would,” said Jimmy. “All I’d have to do would be to tell them some of your bum jokes, and they’d elect me a charter member right off the bat.”
“I think Jimmy would show up even better as a member of the Pie-eater’s Union,” said Joe. “He has such a special gift in that direction that he’d soon be champion of the whole outfit.”
“Well, it’s something to be a champion of anything in these days of competition in sports,” said Jimmy. “But here we are, Bob, and here’s your chance to demonstrate how to become a champion surfboard artist.”
“All right, I’m game,” said Bob. “Hand over that instrument of torture, and I’ll be the goat and give you fellows a good chance to laugh at me.”
The surfboard was about the shape and size of a small ironing board, although much lighter. Equipped with this device, Bob waded into the surf, holding the surfboard over his head until he got into water as deep as his shoulders. There was a fairly high surf running, in spite of his pessimistic prophecy to the contrary. Bob waited until an unusually high breaker came curling in, and then launched himself and the surfboard against the green wall of water.
More by good luck than anything else he caught it at the right angle, and went whirling toward the shore at breath-taking speed. For perhaps a hundred feet he held his position, but then tilted to one side, and in a moment he and the surfboard disappeared in a smother of foam and spray. Tumbled over and over, he finally got to his feet, after the force of the wave had spent itself, and waded into shore, puffing and blowing.
“I got a good start, anyway,” he panted. “I guess it takes practice to keep your balance and come all the way in, but it’s a great sensation. I’m going to try it again.” Suiting the action to the word, Bob waded valiantly in again. After several attempts he finally caught a big wave just right, and by frantic balancing rode all the way in to shallow water. “There you are!” exclaimed Bob triumphantly. “Say, when we once get on to this, it ought to be barrels of fun. Who’s going to be the next one to try it?”