“You struck St. Mary’s Academy, a boarding school for girls,” said the Brother, sympathetically. The Rector’s face was buried in his handkerchief. He was not weeping.
“One little devil—Oh, excuse me—one little double-pigtailed, blue-ribboned thing in the lead saw me and let out a yell. That got me going, and I jumped off that fence and sprinted for the river at the rate of one hundred yards in 9-4/5 seconds—at least, that’s what I thought I was doing, and the screams of all those girls behind me helped me to keep up my clip to the end. I’m sure they thought I was a burglar.”
“Anyhow,” said the Rector consolingly, “they won’t know you again.”
“I should say not. After this I intend paying visits in regulation costume. Well, then, I got into the river, clean blown. I was too tired to swim; so I just lay on my back, and paddled now and then with my feet. The cold got me again in a few minutes; my teeth began to chatter. Oh, it was awful. And then—then I swam and afterward began to lose all feeling, and then I lost consciousness and—I got here.”
“Oh, most lame and impotent conclusion,” said the Rector eyeing the boy sharply. “You’ve left something out.”
“So I have, Father, but I don’t think I have any right to tell the last part.”
The Rector looked puzzled.
“Very well,” he said presently. “Even as it is, it is a wonderful story. In fact, it’s a twentieth century romance. What was the last name of that child Dora?”
“Well, I declare!” said the youth. “It never occurred to me to think she had another name. All I know is that she came from near Dayton, Ohio. Oh, what an ass I am.”
“You might sing that opinion of yourself to the air of ‘My Country, ’tis of Thee,’” suggested the Infirmarian. “We call it the Siamese national hymn.” And he warbled slowly and solemnly to the well-known national air, the words, “O Vatana Siam.” “It will do you lots of good when you feel rather foolish.”