“Not so sure,” whispered Doe, obscurely.  “Come along with me.  No, Moles alone.”  And he dragged White towards the baths.

Within that beloved building I was trying to see how many lengths I could swim.  It was rather late, and I had the water to myself.  I was doing my sixth length when I saw entering the baths the ungainly carcass of White with the graceful form of Doe hanging affectionately on his arm.  The latter was explaining that no one knew how well I could swim, as I had once nearly fainted when extending myself to the utmost and had gone easy ever since.  “But Rupert can really swim at ninety miles an hour,” he concluded.

So White called:  “Come here, Ray.”

“When you say ‘please,’” shouted I, swimming about.

Doe thereupon took the matter in hand and addressed me: 

“Now, Ray, I want you to swim your best.  Here’s a little kiddy friend of mine I’ve brought to see you.  Mr. Ray, this is Master Moles.”

White ignored his companion’s playfulness and asked me: 

“Can you swim sixty yards?”

I hurled about five pints of water at him to show that I detected the insult.

“You old Moles!” said Doe.  “Serves you right.  Why, he’s just finished swimming about seventy thousand yards.”

“Well, sheer off and let’s see you do it,” ordered White.

I accordingly swam my fastest to the deep end and back.

“My word!” gasped White.  “I didn’t know you could swim like that.”

Doe laughed in his face.

“You loon!  He could swim before you were born.”

Moles seized Doe by the throat and pretended to push him into the water, but characteristically saved him from falling by placing an arm round his waist.

“Apologise,” he hissed, “or I’ll drop you.”

“Moles,” replied Doe reproachfully.  “At once let me go; or I’ll push you in.”  I rendered my friend immediate assistance by filling White’s shoes with water.

“Shut up that!” said he, quickly releasing Doe, who retired from the baths shouting:  “Moles, you ugly old elephant, Ray could give you eighty yards in a hundred, and beat you.”

This last impertinence suggested an idea to White.  He arranged that Cully, Johnson, he, and I should have a private race, “in camera,” as he put.  The event came off the following day, and I won it with some yards to spare.  My three defeated opponents were generous in their praise.

“Golly!” said Johnson.  “I thought we’d be last for the Swimming Cup.  But snakes alive! we’ll get in the semi-final.”

“Why, man,” declared Cully.  “I see us in the final with Erasmus.”

“Final be damned!” said White.  “Train like navvies and we’ll lift the Cup!”

Sec.3