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Simmons raised his hands above his head, curved his body, and dived. "Oo!" cried Toppin admiringly. Presently a head appeared, rolling round and blowing. Simmons was swimming towards Toppin. Bacon was now preparing to take a header. "I say, Lucy, you're not a tall chap. No more aren't I. Why can't I swim and dive?"
But there were two people who were "not playing the game". One was Jack Brady, who persisted in walking first with one party and then the other, and refused point-blank to be distant towards anyone. The other was the youngest scholar of Brincliffe, one Hugill Trevelyan, commonly known as "Toppin". He was only seven, and did not understand the meaning of a civil war.
It was those who first started the quarrel between boarders and day-boys, those who put the notion of ill-feeling into his silly little head. I see you're thinking of the swimming-baths, and Toppin's dive. Now I happen to know, and Toppin can bear me out, that the kid asked to be pushed, and that Armitage would have saved him next moment if the March Hare hadn't jumped in and hindered things.
"So I've fair cried dunghill an' run. Mother'll have to tackle him by herself. I lay she won't give him no hush-money," he ses. "I lay he'll be surprised by the time he's done with her," he ses. An' that was e'en a'most all the talk we had concernin' it. But he's no hunger with the toppin' axe.
Yoho! Send your letters raound! All our salt is wetted, an' the anchor's off the graound! Bend, oh, bend your mains'l, we're back to Yankeeland With fifteen hunder' quintal, An' fifteen hunder' quintal, 'Teen hunder' toppin' quintal, 'Twix' old 'Queereau an' Grand."
That good woman stripped the Hare in a twinkling, wrapped him in a blanket, and set him before her kitchen fire to watch his garments dry. Jack meanwhile returned to the saloon, to find Toppin clothed once more, and curled up on the matting, near the heating apparatus, munching a biscuit. "How do you feel now, Top?" he asked, stooping to see his face.
"There's nothing like beginning early. Can you swim, kiddie?" "Not not far," said Toppin cautiously. "I can swim with my arms all right, only I sometimes put one foot on the ground." "If you don't swim, you'll sink, you know," explained Armitage. "This is deep water." "Not so very; only five feet," rejoined Toppin. "I'm not funky. Of course I know how to swim. I've watched frogs awfully closely."
"Boys," says Sam mysteriously, while he was drawing the cider, "you jest ask your Aunt Lois to tell you what she knows 'bout Ruth Sullivan." "Why, what is it?" "Oh! you must ask her. These 'ere folks that's so kind o' toppin' about sperits and sich, come sift 'em down, you gen'lly find they knows one story that kind o' puzzles 'em. Now you mind, and jist ask your Aunt Lois about Ruth Sullivan."
Can drive a nail nigh as far as he could. Quick as Wylackie Bob on th' draw an' as certain, now. Then why must she keep it up?" Curly, more silent in his ways but given to thought, studied the stars that rode the darkening heavens and shook his head. "Let her alone," he said once, "it was Last's command, an' he knew what he was about even if he was toppin' th' rise of the Big Divide.
Garments were dragged off and tossed about, and in a minute they were ready, and dancing round the edge of the clear green water. Avoiding the steps as a matter of course, Toppin was swinging his arms preparatory to jumping into the shallow end, when, seeing Simmons skipping along the plank that led to the diving-board, in the part where the water was marked "5 ft.", he paused to watch.
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