Biscuit's interest was at once apparent.

"Plain and fancy swimming and diving, surfboarding, how to dodge the breakers, how to cheat the undertow, rescue and resuscitation—can you swim, my lad?"

"No, sir, but I wisht I could."

"We have a very fine course in swimming, madam. We positively guarantee to teach swimming in ten lessons or money refunded. All the latest strokes: overhand, trudgeon, crawl, shoulder-stroke—"

"No, not to-day," interrupted Mrs. Westfall. "It's too dangerous. I don't want my boy going into the water."

"Aw, mama, let me learn to swim!" whined Biscuit. "I'm the only boy in town that can't swim!"

"Karl! Be still! It's too dangerous!"

"Pardon me, madam, but it is no more dangerous than playing the piano! By our up-to-date system the student is taught to swim without so much as touching the tip of his finger to the water!"

"A lot of expensive apparatus, I suppose."

"No apparatus whatever! We teach it in the home! Only the smooth top of a kitchen table is required. Individual instruction by mail. And bear in mind that our iron-bound guarantee goes with every course. Money back if not satisfactory."

"How much does it cost?" she asked weakly.

"A mere trifle, madam, when we consider that it may be the means of saving this little fellow's life!"

He laid a blank on the table and produced a fountain pen.

"But the expense?" insisted Mrs. Westfall as she saw him filling out the blank.

"Not enough for a person in your circumstances to consider— Sign there."

She took the pen and poised it uncertainly over the dotted line. "Before I sign this I ought to know—"

"A mere trifle—sign there—an inconsequential nothing—on the dotted line, please—two dollars—"

She signed her name.

"Two dollars a lesson, with our iron-bound guarantee. Thank you, madam! Many thanks! Keep the duplicate for your own reference. And I am leaving you a complete catalogue of our courses. You may be interested in something else later on. And now I will wish you—"

And thus it happened that Biscuit Westfall learned to swim.

Undoubtedly the proudest moment of his whole life was the one when he received his diploma from the Inter-State Correspondence School. To the unprejudiced eye this diploma looked more like the document that is drawn forth from the spy's boot in the war melodrama, than the sheepskin of a scholastic institution. It was decorated with stars and garters, wafers and lozenges; but to Biscuit's unsophisticated gaze it was quite the most important document since the Declaration of Independence.

If Biscuit had worked hard, so had his mother. She had taken a peculiar interest in demonstrating the truth of her oft-repeated assertion that one may learn to swim before going into the water.

She replaced without complaint the oilcloth on the kitchen table which had gone to pieces under Biscuit's efforts to master the scissors-kick. She sewed on in silence the numerous buttons that came off. She darned without comment the knees of many stockings that gave way before the edge of the table. And she paid with unaccustomed cheerfulness the cost of each lesson as it arrived. Whether Biscuit or his mother was prouder of the diploma when it came, would have been hard to tell.

The swimming lessons remained a dead secret until the course was completed and the diploma actually in the hands of the graduate. On one or two occasions Biscuit had been unable to suppress the intelligence that he knew something he wasn't going to tell, but as nobody had pressed him for particulars, the news came as a distinct surprise. And it was divulged on the same day that the diploma was received.

When the usual swim was proposed, instead of starting dolefully for home as had been his wont, Biscuit slapped the proponent on the back and cried:

"All right! I'm with you!"

"Huh?" asked Sube with a blank stare.

"Uh-huh, me! Why not?"

"Your mother gone away?"

"No, course she ain't!"

"Maybe you've learned to swim on dry land!" taunted Sube.

"I sure have!" replied Biscuit with a lofty swagger. "I can swim better'n any you fellers. I can do the trudgeon and the crawl and the scissors and—"

A howl of derision went up.

"Shut up a minute, you fellers!" shouted Sube. "I want to ask 'im some'pm."

Sube was not familiar with the terms Biscuit had so carelessly torn off, but he was none the less impressed. He had a strong suspicion that there was something back of it all.

"Who showed you how?" he asked, concealing with an effort the real extent of his interest.

"I took lessons!"

"Who of?"

"Oh, a perfessional."

"Yes, you did!"

"Well, I did, and I can prove it!"

"Yes, you can! How can you prove it?"

"I'll show you!" cried Biscuit as he started for home. "You wait right here till I get back!"

"He won't be back," predicted Cottontop; "let's get a move on us."

"Aw, we might as well wait around a few minutes," said Sube. "There's some'pm funny about this. He never acted like that before."

They had not long to wait before Biscuit was seen coming towards them on a run. In his hand he carried what looked like a small club, but proved on closer examination to be a mailing-tube. By means of a moistened finger that left Bertillon imprints wherever it touched, Biscuit extracted and unfurled before his skeptical companions the cherished roll of vegetable sheepskin.

"There!" he declared proudly. "I guess that'll prove it!"

"Di-plo-mer—" pronounced Sube.

"Diplomer's right!" boasted the graduate. "This here's my diplomer in plain and fancy swimmin' and divin'! It was rewarded to me by the Inter-State Cor'spon'ence School of Chicago, Ill'noise."

Sube was impressed, deeply impressed; but he was not convinced. "It's a diplomer all right," he admitted; "but can you swim?"

"Can I swim? Can I? Say, you jus' watch me! Watch me!"

Biscuit gaily began to make swimming motions with his hands, as he capered about.

"But I mean in the water!" insisted Sube.

"So do I!" shouted Biscuit jubilantly.

"You don't mean to say that you took lessons in the water!"

"Oh, no-o-o-o! Course not!"

"Then where'd you learn?"

"Right on top of the kitchen table! You see—"

"Never mind about that," interrupted Sube with obvious relief. "We'll go right down to the swimmin'-hole and you can show us all your little tricks."

"Wait till I take my diplomer home!"

"Better not," cautioned Sube. "You might need it when you get in the water!"

"Is that so! Well, you jus' watch me!" shouted Biscuit as he started for home with his precious possession. "Watch me!"

As the boys passed the mill on the way to the swimming-hole, Gizzard, the painter's son, doubtless with inherited instinct, spied on a window sill by the loading platform a can of black paint and a brush, of which Sube, the lawyer's son, likewise with inherited instinct, took immediate possession so they wouldn't get knocked off on the ground, as he explained to Gizzard.

Sube tarried on the bridge long enough to leave Biscuit's misshapen initials on the white hand-rail, and then passed on to the pool, where he found most of the boys ready for the plunge, having stripped off their clothing as they walked.

Biscuit was in the throes of peeling off his undershirt, which had come so far as to envelop his head, but refused to come farther. As he struggled his bare white back arched invitingly before Sube's yearning eyes. The temptation was too strong for Sube. He yielded. And with one bold stroke of the brush he transformed the skin along Biscuit's spine from the purest Caucasian to the shiniest Senegambian.

With an angry bleat Biscuit tore off the shirt and turned on his complacent decorator. "You wipe that off'n me or I'll—!"

"Oh! Will you?—Well, all right. Turn around and I'll wipe it off." And Sube calmly dipped his brush into the paint. "Turn around, Biscuit. Turn your back to Uncle Sube!"

"Don't you put any more of that nasty stuff on me!" bellowed Biscuit.

"But, Biscuit," pleaded Sube in the soft voice of a painless dentist about to extract a molar, "we've got to 'nitiate you, ain't we? Now ain't we, Biscuit?"

This conversation was designed to draw Biscuit's attention so that Gizzard might deliver a rear attack, which he did with complete success. For, an instant later Biscuit was extended face downward on the ground and securely held by his little friends while Sube stood over him, brush in hand, ready to complete his work of art.

"Watch me closely, ladies and gent'mun," Sube declaimed with solemnity, "for I am about to confer on this can'idate the Order of the Golden Fish. This name, ladies and gent'mun, is given to this can'idate on account of his bein' a trick swimmer. He claims he can do the creep, and the bludgeon, and the shears. In our future consuls he will be called 'The Pike,' ladies and gent'mun, note the name, 'The Pike!' I will now give him the stripes that belong to him!"

He at once proceeded to do so.

Biscuit howled lustily, but quite ineffectually. The stripes were given with extreme delicacy of handling, the body scheme following the pattern of his Patron Fish, and the legs being finished with a neat corkscrew design. When the rear exposure had been completed, the candidate was flopped over and finished in front according to the same general idea. After some discussion his face was done in a chaste checkerboard design that was really quite effective.

The great master had just reached the ears when Cathead who was holding one of the candidate's arms, relaxed his grip somewhat in order to make a survey of the nearly finished masterpiece. In a flash Biscuit wrenched loose the arm and struck the can of paint from Sube's hand, splashing the contents over his captors as well as himself. In another flash he was free and on his feet, and making good his escape.

Sube gave chase, wiping the paint from his face as he ran. The others followed for a short distance, but were soon turned back by their modesty.

At first Sube was actuated by motives of revenge. He was going to show Biscuit that nobody could throw a can of paint in his face with impunity. But as Biscuit reached the highway and started for home the episode assumed a different aspect. If Sube had put his thoughts in words they would have sounded something like this:

"Why, he's startin' for home!—The crazy nut!—Hear 'im holler!—He's scairt!—He's scairt to death!—He's scairt crazy!—He don't know what he is doin'!—I got to catch 'im!—What if we'd meet somebody!—What if I couldn't catch 'im!—If he should ever get to his mother!—"

The mere thought quickened Sube's pace. But at the same moment something quickened Biscuit's pace and turned on a little more noise. An automobile occupied by four young ladies came in sight. As it approached it drew out to the side of the road and stopped to watch the progress of the chase. Then it turned around and followed along like an observation train.

Pedestrians stepped aside and looked on in amazement at the strange sight, but fortunately not many were abroad.

As Biscuit came abreast of the Presbyterian Church he hesitated; and hearing his pursuer thundering along behind him, turned in, rushed up the steps, threw open the door and disappeared within, slamming the door behind him.

Sube noted this maneuver with a gasp of relief. "Now I've got 'im cornered!" he muttered approvingly as he leaped up the steps and burst into the church.