“Hoop!” he cried, “here goes,” and in he dived.
“Wowff!” cried Bob, “here’s for after,” and in he sprang next.
“Kaik—kaik!” shrieked the crane, and followed his leader, but he speedily got out again. The water was deep, and as a swimmer the Admiral was somewhat of a failure.
But the barque was raised all and whole, and after a good swim Ransey and Bob returned to the bank. Bob shook himself, making little rainbows all round him, and the boy rolled in the moss till he was dry, but stained rather green.
Then he dressed himself, and looked at his watch—that is, he looked at the sun.
“Why, Bob,” he cried, “it is time to go back to Babs.”
It was such a lovely forenoon that day that the elderly Miss Scragley thought a walk in the woods and wilds—as she phrased it—would do her good. So she took her little six-year-old niece Eedie with her, and started.
The butler wanted to know if he would send a groom with her. But she declined the service.
“It is ever so much better,” she told Eedie, “going all alone and enjoying things, than having a dressed-up doll of a flunkey dawdling behind you carrying wraps.”