The others laughed, and being now out of their misery, as they termed it, they were splashing about and enjoying the water, but neither of them went far from the bank.
“I say, why don’t you come in?” cried the boy who jumped in feet first. “You will like it so.”
“Yes: come along, and try to swim. I can take five strokes. Look here.”
I watched while the boy went along puffing and panting, and making a great deal of splashing.
“Get out!” said the other; “he has got one leg on the ground. This is the way to learn to swim. Look here, Dennison, my father showed me.”
I looked, and he waded out three or four yards, till the water was nearly over his shoulders.
“Oh, I say, isn’t the tide strong!” he cried. “Now, then, look.”
He threw up his arms, joined his hands as he stood facing me, made a sort of jump and turned right over, plunging down before me, his legs and feet coming right out, and then for some seconds there was a great deal of turmoil and splashing in the muddy water, and he came up close to the bank.
“That’s the way,” he cried, panting. “You have to try to get to the bottom, and that gives you confidence.”
“I didn’t learn that way,” shouted George Day. “See me float!”