Hearing a great splashing and screaming, Breck and Jane emerged from behind their friendly dune just in time to see Charlie being boiled to a king’s taste and Mabel, who ordinarily would have been much amused at the discomfiture of an unwary bather, was screaming shrilly and trying to get in to come to the rescue of her beloved Charlie. But one must bide his time in trying to ride waves. Time and tide waits for no man, nor does it hurry, and getting back to shore was not as quick as Mabel would have liked. She made a desperate lunge and, for the first time in the annals of the Wings, one of that name was caught in the surf and “boiled.”
Over and over went Mabel and over and over went Charlie again, but in the confusion they managed to clasp hands and just as Breck, trying to conceal a grin, came to their assistance they managed to crawl up out of reach of the spanking waves.
A rueful couple they were, sitting on the beach blinking ludicrously at each other.
“Well, you needn’t laugh!” spluttered Charlie.
“I’m not laughing! I’m trying to cry, but my eyes are dammed up with sand,” sobbed Mabel.
“Well, you needn’t laugh, Breck, you and Jane.”
“We are not laughing, old fellow. I would have come sooner if I had known what was going on,” said Breck. “‘Boiling’ is no joke to my mind but a serious calamity.”
Breck spoke soberly but he was glad Mabel and Charlie had so much sand in their eyes they could not see his face. Nobody could help smiling at their misery.
Jane came to the assistance of her friend with a small pail some child had left half buried in the sand. This she filled with sea water by carefully timing an incoming breaker. She had no desire to be caught as Mabel and Charlie had been.
“Here, honey, wash out your poor eyes.”