'He's your greatest friend, isn't he?'
'He is.'
Dick paused for a little while.
'I've known him for twenty years now, and I look upon him as the greatest man I've ever set eyes on. I think it's an inestimable privilege to have been his friend.'
'I've not noticed that you treated him with especial awe,' said Mrs. Crowley.
'Heaven save us!' cried Dick. 'I can only hold my own by laughing at him persistently.'
'He bears it with unexampled good-nature.'
'Have I ever told you how I made his acquaintance? It was in about fifty fathoms of water, and at least a thousand miles from land.'
'What an inconvenient place for an introduction!'
'We were both very wet. I was a young fool in those days, and I was playing the giddy goat—I was just going up to Oxford, and my wise father had sent me to America on a visit to enlarge my mind—I fell over-board, and was proceeding to drown, when Alec jumped in after me and held me up by the hair of my head.'