XVII.
Dunham followed Staniford to their room, and helped him off with his wet clothes. He tried to say something ideally fit in recognition of his heroic act, and he articulated some bald commonplaces of praise, and shook Staniford's clammy hand. “Yes,” said the latter, submitting; “but the difficulty about a thing of this sort is that you don't know whether you haven't been an ass. It has been pawed over so much by the romancers that you don't feel like a hero in real life, but a hero of fiction. I've a notion that Hicks and I looked rather ridiculous going over the ship's side; I know we did, coming back. No man can reveal his greatness of soul in wet clothes. Did Miss Blood laugh?”
“Staniford!” said Dunham, in an accent of reproach. “You do her great injustice. She felt what you had done in the way you would wish,—if you cared.”
“What did she say?” asked Staniford, quickly.
“Nothing. But—”
“That's an easy way of expressing one's admiration of heroic behavior. I hope she'll stick to that line. I hope she won't feel it at all necessary to say anything in recognition of my prowess; it would be extremely embarrassing. I've got Hicks back again, but I couldn't stand any gratitude for it. Not that I'm ashamed of the performance. Perhaps if it had been anybody but Hicks, I should have waited for them to lower a boat. But Hicks had peculiar claims. You couldn't let a man you disliked so much welter round a great while. Where is the poor old fellow? Is he clothed and in his right mind again?”
“He seemed to be sober enough,” said Dunham, “when he came on board; but I don't think he's out yet.”
“We must let Thomas in to gather up this bathing-suit,” observed Staniford. “What a Newportish flavor it gives the place!” He was excited, and in great gayety of spirits.
He and Dunham went out into the cabin, where they found Captain Jenness pacing to and fro. “Well, sir,” he said, taking Staniford's hand, and crossing his right with his left, so as to include Dunham in his congratulations, “you ought to have been a sailor!” Then he added, as if the unqualified praise might seem fulsome, “But if you'd been a sailor, you wouldn't have tried a thing like that. You'd have had more sense. The chances were ten to one against you.”
Staniford laughed. “Was it so bad as that? I shall begin to respect myself.”