ah!" he cried, waving his hat above his head. "Get out, Buller;
he is all right now!"

Presently Mr. Buller approached, very much shaken up.

"All right?" he said. "I don't call a horse flat in a road with a man
on his head all right; but hold him down till we get him loose from my
boat. That is the thing to do. William, cast him loose from the boat
before you let him up! What will he do when he gets up?"

"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 ca