He paused in his reflections to try to disentangle the more prominent of Mr. Swenson’s limbs from about him. By this time he was sure that he had never met anyone he disliked so intensely as Mr. Swenson—not even his Aunt Adeline. The man was a human octopus. Sam could count seven distinct legs twined round him and at least as many arms. It seemed to him that he was being done to death in his prime by a solid platoon of Swedes. He put his whole soul into one last effort ... something seemed to give ... he was free. Pausing only to try to kick Mr. Swenson in the face, Sam shot to the surface. Something hard and sharp prodded him in the head. Then something caught the collar of his coat; and, finally, spouting like a whale, he found himself dragged upwards and over the side of a boat.
The time which Sam had spent with Mr. Swenson below the surface had been brief, but it had been long enough to enable the whole floating population of the North River to converge on the scene in scows, skiffs, launches, tugs, and other vessels. The fact that the water in that vicinity was crested with currency had not escaped the notice of these navigators, and they had gone to it as one man. First in the race came the tug “Reuben S. Watson,” the skipper of which, following a famous precedent, had taken his little daughter to bear him company. It was to this fact that Marlowe really owed his rescue. Women often have a vein of sentiment in them where men can only see the hard business side of a situation; and it was the skipper’s daughter who insisted that the family boat-hook, then in use as a harpoon for spearing dollar bills, should be devoted to the less profitable but humaner end of extricating the young man from a watery grave.
The skipper had grumbled a bit at first but had given way—he always spoiled the girl—with the result that Sam found himself sitting on the deck of the tug, engaged in the complicated process of restoring his faculties to the normal. In a sort of dream he perceived Mr. Swenson rise to the surface some feet away, adjust his bowler hat, and, after one long look of dislike in his direction, swim off rapidly to intercept a five which was floating under the stern of a near-by skiff.
Sam sat on the deck and panted. He played on the boards like a public fountain. At the back of his mind there was a flickering thought that he wanted to do something, a vague feeling that he had some sort of an appointment which he must keep; but he was unable to think what it was. Meanwhile, he conducted tentative experiments with his breath. It was so long since he had last breathed that he had lost the knack of it.
“Well, aincher wet?” said a voice.
The skipper’s daughter was standing beside him, looking down commiseratingly. Of the rest of the family all he could see was the broad blue seats of their trousers as they leaned hopefully over the side in the quest for wealth.
“Yes, sir! You sure are wet! Gee! I never seen anyone so wet! I seen wet guys but I never seen anyone so wet as you. Yessir, you’re certainly wet!”
“I am wet,” admitted Sam.
“Yessir, you’re wet! Wet’s the word all right. Good and wet, that’s what you are!”
“It’s the water,” said Sam. His brain was still clouded; he wished he could remember what that appointment was. “That’s what has made me wet.”