out! Take
care!"

Two small lads in a large Egg Harbor skiff, seeing the swimmer in their
way, made too late an effort to avoid him. A strong west wind was
blowing. The boat was moving fast. De Courval saw the heavy bow strike
the head of the man, who was quite unaware of the nearness of the boat.
He went under. De Courval struck out for the stern of the boat, and in
its wake caught sight of a white body near the surface. He seized it,
and easily got the man's head above water. The boat came about, the boys
scared and awkward. With his left hand, De Courval caught the low
gunwale and with his right held up the man's head. Then he felt the long
body stir. The great, laboring chest coughed out water, and the man,
merely stunned and, as he said later, only quarter drowned, drew deep
breaths and gasped, "Let them pull to shore." The boys put out oars in
haste, and in a few minutes De Courval felt the soft mud as he dropped
his feet and stood beside the German. In a minute the two were on the
beach, the one a young, white figure with the chest muscles at relieving
play; the other a tall, gaunt, bronzed man, shaking and still coughing
as he cast himself on the bordering grass without a word.

"Are you all right?" asked De Courval, anxiously.

For a moment the rescued man made no reply as he lay looking up at the
sky. Then he said: "Yes, or will be presently. This sun is a good doctor
and sends in no bill. Go in and dress. I shall be well presently. My
boat! Ah, the boys bring it. Now my clothes. Do not scold them. It was
an accident."

"That is of the past," he said in a few moments as De Courval rejoined
him, "a contribution to experience. Thank you," and he put out a hand
that told of anything but the usage of toil as he added: "I was
wondering, as I dressed, which is the better for it, the helper or the
helped. Ach, well, it is a good introduction. You are mein Herr de
Courval, and I am Johann Schmidt, at your honorable service now and
ever. Let us go in. I must rest a little before breakfast. I have known
you,"--and he laughed,--"shall we say five years? We will not trouble
the women with it."

"I? Surely not."

"Pardon me. I was thinking of my own tongue, which is apt to gabble,
being the female part of a man's body."

"May I beg of you not to speak of it," urged De Courval, gravely.

"How may I promise for the lady?" laughed Schmidt as they moved through
the fruit-trees. "Ah, here is the basket of roses for th