ife preserver
there. Alas, no! But there, ladies and gents, I found something better.
When I didn't find a life preserver I was stunned--yes, clean knocked
out. I dropped into a chair and laid my head on the captain's table.
I sat there several minutes, the ship sinking one foot per minute,
and when I come to my senses, and raised my head, my hand was lying on
this."

Reverently he raised the volume from his knees and unwrapped it, and the
Ladies' Foreign Mission Society leaned forward with one accord to catch
a glimpse of the title. Eliph' Hewlitt opened the book and flipped over
the pages rapidly with the moistened tip of his third finger.

"It was this book, ladies and gents, and it was open here, page 742.
Without thinking, I read the first thing that hit my eye. 'How to Make
a Life Preserver,' it said. 'Take the corks from a hundred champagne
bottles; tie them tightly in a common shirt; then fasten the arms of
the shirt about the body, with the corks resting on the chest. With this
easily improvised life preserver drowning is impossible.' I done it. The
captain of that ship was a high liver, and his room was chuck full of
champagne bottles. I put in two extry corks for good measure, and when
the ship went down, I floated off on the top of the ocean as easy as a
duck takes to a pond."

"My sakes!" exclaimed Mrs. Weaver, "that captain must have been an awful
hard drinker!"

"He was," said Eliph' Hewlitt--"fearful. I was really shocked. But,
there I was in the water, and not much better off for it, neither, for I
couldn't swim a stroke, and as soon as I got through bobbing up and down
like your cork when you've got a sunfish on your line, I stayed right
still, just as if I'd been some bait-can a boy had thrown into an eddy,
and I figgered like as not I'd stay there forever. Then I noticed I had
this book in my hand, and I thought, 'While I'm staying here forever,
I'll just take another peek at this book,' and I opened her. Page
781," said Eliph', turning quickly to that page, "was where she opened.
'Swimming; How to Float, Swim, Dive, and Tread Water--Plain and Fancy
Swimming, Shadow Swimming, High Diving,' et cetery. There she was, all
as plain as pie, and when I read it I could swim as easy as an old
hand. The direction al through this book is plain, practical, and easily
followed.

"I at once swum off to the south, for there was no telling how long I'd
have to swim, and as the water was sort of cool, I though