“Oh. he’ll be quiet enough when he gets up,” said Podington.  “But if you’ve got a knife you can cut his traces—–­I mean that rope—­but no, you needn’t.  Here comes the boy.  We’ll settle this business in very short order now.”

When the horse was on his feet, and all connection between the animal and the boat had been severed, Mr. Podington looked at his friend.

“Thomas,” said he, “you seem to have had a hard time of it.  You have lost your hat and you look as if you had been in a wrestling-match.”

“I have,” replied the other; “I wrestled with that tiller and I wonder it didn’t throw me out.”

Now approached the boy.  “Shall I hitch him on again, sir?” said he.  “He’s quiet enough now.”

“No,” cried Mr. Buller; “I want no more sailing after a horse, and, besides, we can’t go on the lake with that boat; she has been battered about so much that she must have opened a dozen seams.  The best thing we can do is to walk home.”

Mr. Podington agreed with his friend that walking home was the best thing they could do.  The boat was examined and found to be leaking, but not very badly, and when her mast had been unshipped and everything had been made tight and right on board, she was pulled out of the way of tow-lines and boats, and made fast until she could be sent for from the town.

Mr. Buller and Mr. Podington walked back toward the town.  They had not gone very far when they met a party of boys, who, upon seeing them, burst into unseemly laughter.

“Mister,” cried one of them, “you needn’t be afraid of tumbling into the canal.  Why don’t you take off your life-preserver and let that other man put it on his head?”

The two friends looked at each other and could not help joining in the laughter of the boys.

“By George!  I forgot all about this,” said Podington, as he unfastened the cork jacket.  “It does look a little super-timid to wear a life-preserver just because one happens to be walking by the side of a canal.”

Mr. Buller tied a handkerchief on his head, and Mr. Podington rolled up his life-preserver and carried it under his arm.  Thus they reached the town, where Buller bought a hat, Podington dispensed with his bundle, and arrangements were made to bring back the boat.

“Runaway in a sailboat!” exclaimed one of the canal boatmen when he had heard about the accident.  “Upon my word!  That beats anything that could happen to a man!”

“No, it doesn’t,” replied Mr. Buller, quietly.  “I have gone to the bottom in a foundered road-wagon.”

The man looked at him fixedly.

“Was you ever struck in the mud in a balloon?” he asked.

“Not yet,” replied Mr. Buller.

It required ten days to put Mr. Buller’s sailboat into proper condition, and for ten days Mr. Podington stayed with his friend, and enjoyed his visit very much.  They strolled on the beach, they took long walks in the back country, they fished from the end of a pier, they smoked, they talked, and were happy and content.