"I don't want to," replied Bill Breakstone calmly. "When it makes me happy all through and through just to be swimming around in a pool of nice cool water, what's the use of growing up? Answer me that, Hans Arenberg."
"I can't," replied the German. "It isn't in me to give an answer to such a question."
"I suppose we've got to go out at last, dress again, and go back to work," said Breakstone lugubriously. "It's a hard world for us men, Phil."
"One iss not a fish, and, being not a fish," said Arenberg, "one must go out on dry land some time or other to rest, and the some time has now come."
They swam to land, but Bill Breakstone began to plead.
"Let's lie here on the sand and luxuriate for a space, Sir Philip of the Rio Grande and Count Hans of the Llano Estacado, which is Spanish for the Staked Plain, which I have seen more than once," said Bill Breakstone. "The sand is white, it is clean, and it has been waiting a long time for us to lie upon it, close our eyes, and forget everything except that we are happy."
"It iss a good idea," said Arenberg. "There are times when it iss well to be lazy, only most men think it iss all the time."
They stretched themselves out on the white sand and let the warm sun play upon them, permeating their bodies and soothing and relaxing every muscle. Phil had not felt so peaceful in a long time. It had relieved him to tell the secret of his quest to Breakstone, who, with his permission, had told it in turn to Middleton and Arenberg, and now that he was really in Mexico with strong friends around him he felt that the first great step had been accomplished. The warm sun felt exceedingly good, his eyes were closed, and a pleasant darkness veiled them, a faint murmur, the flowing of the river, came to his ears, and he floated away with the current.
"Here! here! Sir Philip of the Sleepy Head, wake up. It isn't your first duty to go to sleep when you arrive in Mexico! Besides, it's time we were back at the camp, or they'll think Santa Anna has got us already! Also, you need more clothes than you've got on just now!"
Phil sprang up embarrassed, but he saw Arenberg looking sheepish, also.