“See what it is, Bert,” exclaimed the Scotchman, “to have a truly gentle and forgiving nature—­how it brings its own reward.  I’m afraid you and I miss a great deal in life, lad.”

The beautiful youth pondered this.

“I don’t know,” he replied, “what you say sounds quite fit and proper for the parson, and all that, of course, but I fancy you are a bit out in supposing that Miss Harding is so forgiving, old man.”

“I didn’t know that you thought so badly of me, too!” I said timidly.  I couldn’t help it—­the temptation was too great.

“I?  Oh, really, now, you can’t think that!” Through the dusk I saw that he was flushing hotly.

“Lad,” said the Scotchman in a suddenly harsh voice, “lend a hand with this rope, will you?” And in the dusk I turned away to hide my triumphant smiles.  I had found the weak spot of my foe—­as Mr. Tubbs might have said, I was wise to Achilles’s heel.

And now through the dawn-twilight that lay upon the cove the boat drew near that bore Mr. Tubbs and his fair charges.  I saw the three cork helmets grouped together in the stern.  Then the foaming fringe of wavelets caught the boat, hurled it forward, seemed all but to engulf it out leaped the sailors.  Out leaped Mr. Tubbs, and disappeared at once beneath the waves.  Shrill and prolonged rose the shrieks of my aunt and Miss Higglesby-Browne.  Valiantly Mr. Shaw and Cuthbert Vane had rushed into the deep.  Each now appeared staggering up the steep, foam-swept strand under a struggling burden.  Even after they were safely deposited on the sand.  Miss Browne and my aunt continued to shriek.

“Save, save Mr. Tubbs!” implored Aunt Jane.  But Mr. Tubbs, overlooked by all but this thoughtful friend, had cannily saved himself.  He advanced upon us dripping.

“A close call!” he sang out cheerfully.  “Thought one time old Nep had got a strangle-hold all right.  Thinks I, I guess there’ll be something doing when Wall Street gets this news—­that old H. H. is food for the finny denizens of the deep!”

“Such an event, Mr. Tubbs,” pronounced Violet, who had recovered her form with surprising swiftness, “might well have sent its vibrations through the financial arteries of the world!”

“It would have been most—­most shocking!” quavered poor Aunt Jane with feeling.  She was piteously striving to extricate herself from the folds of the green veil.

I came to her assistance.  The poor plump little woman was trembling from head to foot.

“It was a most—­unusual experience,” she told me as I unwound her.  “Probably extremely—­unifying to the soul-forces and all that, as Miss Browne says, but for the moment—­unsettling.  Is my helmet on straight, dear?  I think it is a little severe for my type of face, don’t you?  There was a sweet little hat in a Fifth Avenue shop—­simple and yet so chic.  I thought it just the thing, but Miss Browne said no, helmets were always worn—­Coffee?  Oh, my dear child, how thankful I shall be!”