It was impossible to be more safe from drowning than Corrie was at that time. He was in fact on land as dry as the weather permitted, engaged in operating a small ciderpress for the benefit of himself and Gerard, at a certain old-fashioned farm where he was—as he himself explained—persona very grata indeed.
"They are used to me," he supplemented. "Wonderful what people can get used to, isn't it?"
"It surely is," Gerard agreed, from his seat on an overturned barrel. He contemplated interestedly the picture Corrie presented with his sleeves rolled to the elbow, his coat off and his bright hair flecked with ruby-hued drops of the flying liquid. "See here, Corrie, what are you planning to do with yourself?"
"Do? Meet Rupert and try out the Dear Me, of course. Why?"
"I didn't mean that way. College? Business?"
"Oh! Would you pitch over that tin-cup, please? Why, I am all through college."
"Through it! Before you are nineteen?"
"Jes' so. Like to see the pretty blue-ribboned papers that prove it?" He sat down on the press, drying his face with his handkerchief. "You see, my father had tutors to lavish all their wisdom and attention on little Corwin B. Rose, and I never had to wait while the rest of a class ploughed along, so I got through the usual junk and was ready for college at fifteen plus. So I entered at New York, where I could drive back and forth from home each day, and finished up the college business. It was a nuisance and I wanted to get it over, so I hustled a bit. The classical course, you know, not the professional. I graduated last Spring, just before I met you at the twenty-four-hour race. You look surprised."
"I should not have thought it of you."