The roads were perfect, and the kindly twilight as they swept past the line plantations of Randwick, and adown the noble avenue which in the future will be one of the glories of Sydney, through the wide half-redeemed expanse of Moore Park, and so home by Woollahra, gave them every opportunity of lengthening their tête-à-tête, and yet arriving at Morahmee in time for dinner. It necessitated a hasty toilet on both sides, but at the last notes of the bell Antonia appeared, looking very fresh and animated after the expedition, and Ernest, whose appetite had not yet relapsed into metropolitan apathy, looked forward to dinner with feelings of almost youthful anticipation.
‘Well, what do you think of Bondi?’ asked the old gentleman. ‘I was nearly drowned there when I was a youngster swimming in the surf. In fact I was drowned to all intents and purposes, except that I am here now. I was sucked back by the undertow time after time, till I was quite beaten. I had a few minutes’ awful struggle; then collapse and half a minute’s choke; then lovely music in my ears; and I left the world—as I thought—for good.’
‘You dear old naughty boy of a father,’ said Antonia, with tears half gathering to her eye, ‘I am sure you were bathing unlawfully, like the boys in the story-book. But what restored you to life?’
‘Well, a Maori, who happened to come up at the time in a fishing-boat. He could swim.’
‘But I thought you said that you were swimming in the surf and did your best to fight through it?’ inquired Ernest.
‘Maoris and Kanakas can swim’, repeated the old man sarcastically. ’White men like you and me can only paddle. Anyhow, he dived and brought me up, and ten minutes after I was suffering the frightful torture, “coming to.” So, as perhaps you may have guessed, I did not die that time.’
‘Oft in danger, yet alive,
We are come to, fifty-five,’
quoted Ernest. ‘I daresay you have had all sorts of hairbreadth escapes, if you would only tell them to us.’
‘Escapes! well, I have had a few,’ chuckled the old man. ‘Some day I must make Antonia write them out, and we’ll publish the Surprising Adventures of Paul Frankston. I wonder if I could put in some of my stories? Ha! ha! ha! How they would laugh.’