Dick was out of his clothes in a jiffy. "So long," he called, as he took a "header" from the bow of the boat.
He was perfectly at home in the water, and when Matt saw him swimming out toward a headland that walled in the cove on the south, he thought little of it. When he saw that Dick was intending to swim around the point, however, he stood up and called out a warning. But Dick only laughed and kept on until he was out of sight.
"He von't go so far dot he can't ged pack again," remarked Carl. "He iss like a fish, Tick iss, und he feels pedder in der vater as oudt oof id."
Carl, for some days, had been wearing an outfit of sailor togs which he had found in the slop chest of the submarine. He was trying to be as nautical as possible, so that he could "shiver his timbers" and "dash his deadeyes" with the best of them when the Grampus reached San Francisco.
"I can valk like a sailor," remarked Carl, getting up from his seat by the tower, "und aboudt all I lack now iss to be aple to hitch oop my drousers like vat a sailor does. How iss der vay oof it, Matt?"
"Never mind that part of it, Carl," laughed Matt. "You'll be enough of a sailor at the end of this cruise, even if you don't know how to hitch up your trousers. Besides," and Matt squinted at him critically, "I doubt if you could ever do the trick."
"For vy nod?"
"Why, the trousers are too tight a fit around the waist."
"Yah, so, aber dey're so pig a fit oop und down dot I valk on der pottoms, und id iss eider hitch dem oop oder cut dem off. Now, vatch. Meppy id goes like dis."
Carl jumped into the air, grapped the band of the trousers with one hand in front and the other behind, and kicked out his legs. When he came down, his feet were so far apart that they slipped on the rounded plates, and he went down and rolled over and over. Matt grabbed him just in the nick of time to keep him out of the water.