"That's the ticket; just watch him take the high dive, will you, boys?"
"Mine gootness gracious, poys, oxcuse me, if you blease. If you dink I can dot blunge make vidoudt upsetting mineself, you haf anudder guess coming."
"Try it, Adam!"
"You've just got to, you know, old chap! Everybody's jumped but you; and all the while you've just sat there on the bank and watched us cutting up!"
"Shut your eyes, Adam, if you're timid, and then go; head or feet first, we don't care which, so long as you make a big splash."
"Ach, idt vould not, pe sooch a surprises if Adam he preaks his neck: put, poys, if dot happens, somepody carry de news to mine mudder. Py chimineddy, here I go!"
"Get out of the way, Ty Collins, if you don't want to get squashed; for here comes Adam down the shoot-the-shoot plunge!"
A number of lads were in swimming out in the country quite a number of miles away from the home town of Hickory Ridge. Besides the stout German who was standing in a hesitating way on the springboard that had been thrust out from the high bank, some ten feet above the water, there were Elmer Chenowith, Ty Collins, Landy Smith, and Ted Burgoyne, the latter of whom, though afflicted with a decided lisp, was looked upon with considerable respect among his fellows in the Boy Scout troop, because of his knowledge of medicine and the rudiments of surgery.
They had been splashing and having a splendid time for at least ten minutes after entering the water, when somebody happened to notice that the new recruit in the Hickory Ridge troop of Boy Scouts, Adam Litzburgh, a name that had been quickly corrupted into Limburger by the boys, did not seem to enter into the sport, but contented himself with either dipping his feet into the water, as if afraid, or else sitting ashore in the shade watching his new mates.
Adam seemed to be inclined toward stoutness, although hardly in the same class with Landy, who had long been bantered by his chums on account of his ever-increasing tendency to put on flesh in spite of all he could do.