“You don’t need a bathing-suit out here,” said Toby, testing the commutator with the point of a screw-driver and mentally deciding to put a new spring on before the next trip. “Go ahead in if you like. I’ll slow down and tow you.”
“You don’t need to slow down,” answered Arnold. “I can swim as fast as you’re going now.” Which, as the launch was making a fair six miles, was a slight exaggeration.
“What’s the fastest any one ever swam a mile, anyway?” inquired Toby.
“About twenty-four minutes, I think,” answered Arnold.
“Twenty-three and about sixteen seconds,” corrected Frank in a superior tone. “That’s professional, I guess. Some Australian chap. It takes those fellows to swim. We don’t know anything about it in this country.”
“Don’t we? What’s the matter with that Honolulu chap, Duke Somebody? He’s a corker.”
“He’s a Hawaiian. I said in this country.”
“Well, he’s an American, just the same,” insisted Arnold. “And there was a chap who swam from the Battery in New York to Sandy Hook just the other day in just over seven hours. That’s about twenty miles. So he made almost three miles an hour. Lots of the fancy records you hear about are made in tanks. Swimming in open water, with waves and tides and—and——”
“Sharks,” offered Toby.
“And wind is another thing entirely.”