"They wouldn't think anything of me a doing it," he continued, quite regardless of his grammar, "because I'm a boy, and I'm s'posed to be brave, anyway, but you're a girl, and that's different.
"Come! Get in! I'll shove it!"
Gwen paused for a moment, then:
"Give me your hand!" she said.
She was afraid, but her silly vanity prompted her to do it. She knew that neither of her playmates would dare, and Max had promised to tell the other boys of the brave feat.
Max took her hand, and she sprang into the tub, crouching on the bottom, as he shoved it off into water a bit deeper than that in which they had been standing.
The tub was roughly made and anything but clean. The workmen had used it for holding cement, but had emptied it, and left it on the beach where Max had found it.
He was very fond of coaxing others to do things that he himself would never have done. Now, safe on dry land, he stood cheering Gwen for her bravery.
"Well, come and wade out here and get me back," she cried. "I've proved that I dared to do it, and that's enough!"
"Wait till I get the fellows to come and see you out there in the tub. They might not believe me if I just told them!" shouted Max, and he raced off at top speed, paying no heed to Gwen's shrieks. No one could have guessed if Max heard her and yet kept on running, or whether the sound of his own footfalls drowned her cries.