All-of-a-sudden there was a splash. It was certainly to be expected that one of the thirteen children had fallen in, but no!-- It--was--Marmaduke!
Down, down, down, he sank in the gurgly brown water. Then he came up, spluttering and choking.
"Help, help!" he cried.
Then under he went again.
But the Round Fat Rosy Woman had seen him.
"Quick, Hiram!" she shouted to her husband in a voice that sounded like a man's, "there's a boy fallen overboard!"
"Where?" asked the man at the tiller, still keeping the pipe in his mouth.
She pointed into the brown water.
"Right there--there's where he went down."
Perhaps the Man With the Red Shirt and the Pipe was so used to having his children fall into the coal, or the Canal, or something, that he didn't think it was a serious matter, for he came to the side of the "Mary Ellen" very slowly, just as Marmaduke was coming up for the third time.