CHAPTER III
WESTBY’S AMUSEMENTS
The water was warm, but Irving swallowed a good deal of it and also was conscious of the fact that he had on a perfectly good suit of clothes. So he came to the surface, choking and annoyed; and when he recovered his faculties, he observed first of all Westby’s grinning face.
“You can swim all right, can’t you, Mr. Upton?” said Westby. “I thought for a moment we might have to dive for you.”
Irving clutched at the stern of the capsized canoe and said, rather curtly, “I’m not dressed to enjoy swimming.”
“I’m awfully sorry,” said Scarborough. “But I never thought they were going to turn that way; I don’t know what Carrie thought he was doing—”
“I’d have shown you some strategy if you hadn’t blundered into us,” declared Carroll.
“Blundered into you! There was no need for Wes to give us such a poke, anyhow.”
Westby replied merely with an irritating chuckle—irritating at least to Irving, who felt that he should be showing more contrition.
Collingwood and Morrill came alongside, both laughing, jeering at Westby and offering polite expressions of solicitude to the master. They told him to lay hold of the tail of their canoe, and then they towed him ashore as rapidly as possible. When he drew himself up, dripping, on the bank, Baldersnaith, Dennison, and Smythe were all on the broad grin, and from the water floated the sound of Westby’s merriment.