Frank Armstrong, Drop Kicker

by Matthew M. Colton

Every one was watching the strange maneuvers of the boat and laughing at its queer occupant as it drew up to the float. There was much wondering as to what the lady could want. As the boat touched the edge of the float she stood up awkwardly and put one foot on the float, pushing with the other one in the boat to help herself up. Of course, you all know what happened. The boat, instead of giving her the support she desired, shot away with her vigorous push. The queer woman lost her balance, toppled over backward, fell with a resounding crash into the water and sank, cotton gloves and all.

Immediately there was a cry from the spectators, and Lewis, who happened to be standing nearest, without thought of his clothes, went over after her like a hero. Almost immediately he appeared clutching something desperately. It was the skirt of the drowning woman. How he pulled to save her from a watery grave! But he pulled too savagely, for the skirt was left in his hands, and the woman sank like a stone. Then the feather on that gorgeous picture hat came into view. Lewis grabbed at the hat. That, too, came away in his hand, and he threw it on the float, debating with himself whether or not he would go to the bottom after her, as Frank had dived a few days before for the drowning girl. He thought it strange that no one of all those swimmers came to help him, but he had been trying so desperately to do his duty that he had not looked up. A roar of laughter now caused him to look, and to his amazement every one on the float was convulsed, holding their sides and swaying back and forth.

Just then, right alongside him, bobbed up the round and smiling face of Bunny Taylor, the fattest boy of the Point. A bedraggled wig of long hair floated out behind him and one cotton-gloved hand grabbed the side of the float. Then the truth dawned on Lewis. He had been the victim of a hoax. It wasn't a woman at all who had fallen overboard. He climbed out of the water and dashed for the dressing room while the crowd laughed and shouted.

"Poor old Lewis," said Frank, chasing after him. "It was too bad you were so near. That is one of the regular tricks at a water carnival. Some one made up as a woman falls overboard, and sometimes an innocent and unsuspecting bystander, not on the inside, jumps in and rescues the drowning 'lady.' It's hard luck that it was you."

Lewis was almost in tears. "I certainly must have looked like a goat, jumping in after that galoot."

"You were a hero," said the Codfish, who had followed, "a real out-and-out first-class hero. If she hadn't been the most elusive woman in the world, you would have saved her for sure. But it's always safer to grab them by the neck than by the skirt; always remember that, Lewis."

"Oh, shut up," said Lewis, still ruffled. "I only wish it had been you, you walking advertisement for a gents' furnishing store!"

"I tell you what you can do to even up with this crowd—go out and win the plunge," said Frank, comforting him. "You can do it, and then they won't have the laugh on you. Hurry up, there's the first call for the event."

Lewis got out of his wet street clothes, put on his water costume and walked rather sheepishly out on the float. There he was greeted with such a storm of cheers and hand-clapping that he forgot his chagrin and fell into a better humor—so good a humor, indeed, that he went determinedly at the work in hand and won the event by a clean five feet from the best plunger that Turner's Point could offer.

"Bully boy," said Burton, as Lewis passed him on the float, headed for the dressing room. "You turned the tables on them." Whereat Lewis grinned more broadly than ever.