ship and then ran for the shore, as though chased by all the furies.  When I had reached the shore it was nothing to run to the base in front of our house and be free.  But I was destined not to enjoy my happiness very long, for almost the very moment I once more had solid ground beneath my feet I heard cries of distress coming from the third and second ships, and my name called repeatedly, which made me think something must have happened.  Swiftly as I had made for the shore over the noisy plank walk, I now hastened back over it.  There was no time to lose.  Fritz Ehrlich had tried to imitate my leap from the kitchen, but, failing to equal my distance, had fallen into the water between the ships.  And there the poor boy was, digging his nails into the cracks in the ship’s hull.  Swimming was out of the question, even if he knew anything about it.  Besides, the water was icy cold.  To reach him from the deck with the means at hand was impossible.  So I grasped a piece of rope hanging from a rope ladder and, letting myself down the side of the ship, tried every way I could think of to lengthen my body as much as possible, till finally Fritz was barely able to catch hold of my left foot, which reached furthest down, while I held on above with my right hand.  “Take hold, Fritz!” But the doughty fellow, who may have realized that we should both be lost if he really took a firm hold, contented himself with laying his hand lightly upon the toe of my boot, and little as that was, it nevertheless sufficed to keep his head above water.  To be sure, he may have been by natural endowment a “water treader,” as they are called; or he may have had the traditional luck of the illegitimate, which seems to me on second thought more probable.  In any case he kept afloat till some people came from the shore and reached a punt-pole down to him, while some others untied a boat lying at Hannemann’s Clapper and rowed it into the space between the ships to fish him out.  The moment that the saving punt-pole arrived some man unknown to me reached down from the ladder, seized me by the collar, and with a vigorous jerk hoisted me back on deck.

On this occasion not a word of reproach was uttered, though I could not say as much of any other occasion of the kind.  The people took Fritz Ehrlich, drenched and freezing, to a house in the immediate neighborhood, while the rest of us started home in a very humble frame of mind.  To be sure, I had also a feeling of elation, despite the fact that my prospects for the future were not of the pleasantest.  But my fears were not realized.  Quite the contrary.  The following morning, as I was starting to school, my father met me in the hall and stopped me.  Neighbor Pietzker, the good man with the nightcap, had been tattling again, though with better intentions than usual.

“I’ve heard the whole business,” said my father.  “Why, in the name of heaven, can’t you be obedient!  But we’ll let it pass, since you acquitted yourself so well.  I know all the details.  Pietzker across the street ...”