“I daresay I could,” replied the young man; “but why should I?”
“Why should you!” sneered the man with his hands in his pockets; “why, ’cause every one does.”
“Because everyone goes and risks his life just for the sake of gratifying his vanity,” replied Harry Paul, “I don’t see why I should go and do the same.”
“Ah, now you’re beginning to talk fine,” growled the old fisherman, “and a-shoving your book-larning at us. Look here, young ’un; a lad as can’t swim ain’t—’cordin’ to my ideas—hardly worth the snuff of a candle.”
“I don’t go so far as you do, Tom,” said the young man, smiling; “but I do hold that every young fellow should be able to swim well, and so I learned.”
“Yes, but you can’t do the dive,” said the man with his hands in his pockets mockingly.
“Oh, he’s going to do it,” said the old fisherman. “The water’s just right, Master Harry. You go. Take my advice: you go. Just wait till the wave’s coming well up, then fall into her, and out you come, and the current’ll carry you out through the Shangles.”
“And what the better shall I be if I do?” said the young man warmly.
“What the better, my lad!” said the old fellow, looking aghast. “Why, you’ll ha’ made quite a man o’ yourself.”
“But I shall have done no good whatever.”