Love Among the Chickens (New York: 1909)/Chapter 19
XIX
REVIEWING the matter later, I see that I made a poor choice of time and place. But at the moment this did not strike me. It is a simple thing, I reflected, for a man to pass another by haughtily and without recognition, when they meet on dry land; but when the said man, being an indifferent swimmer, is accosted in the water and out of his depth, the feat becomes a hard one.
When, therefore, having undressed on the Cob on the following morning, I spied in the distance, as I was about to dive, the gray head of the professor bobbing on the face of the waters, I did not hesitate. I plunged in and swam rapidly toward him.
His face was turned in the opposite direction when I came up with him, and it was soon evident that he had not observed my approach. For when, treading water easily in his immediate rear, I wished him good morning in my most conciliatory tones, he stood not upon the order of his sinking, but went under like so much pig iron. I waited courteously until he rose to the surface once more, when I repeated my remark.
He expelled the last remnant of water from his mouth with a wrathful splutter, and cleared his eyes with the back of his hand.
"The water is delightfully warm," I said.
"Oh, it's you!" said he, and I could not cheat myself into believing that he spoke cordially.
"You are swimming splendidly this morning," I said, feeling that an ounce of flattery is often worth a pound of rhetoric. "If," I added, "you will allow me to say so."
"I will not," he snapped. "I—" Here a small wave, noticing that his mouth was open, walked in. "I wish," he resumed warmly, "as I said in me letter, to have nothing to do with you. I consider ye've behaved in a manner that can only be described as abominable, and I will thank ye to leave me alone."
"But, allow me"
"I will not allow ye, sir. I will allow ye nothing. Is it not enough to make me the laughingstock, the butt, sir, of this town, without pursuing me in this manner when I wish to enjoy a quiet swim?"
His remarks, which I have placed on paper as if they were continuous and uninterrupted, were punctuated in reality by a series of gasps and puffings as he received and ejected the successors of the wave he had swallowed at the beginning of our little chat. The art of conducting bright conversation while in the water is not given to every swimmer. This he seemed to realize, for, as if to close the interview, he proceeded to make his way as quickly as he could toward the shore. Using my best stroke, I shot beyond him and turned, treading water as before.
"But, professor," I said, "one moment."
I was growing annoyed with the man. I could have ducked him but for the reflection that my prospects of obtaining his consent to my engagement with Phyllis would hardly have been enhanced thereby. No more convincing proof of my devotion can be given than this, that I did not seize that little man by the top of his head, thrust him under water, and keep him there.
I restrained myself. I was suave. Soothing, even.
"But, professor," I said, "one moment."
"Not one," he spluttered. "Go away, sir. I will have nothing to say to you."
"I shan't keep you a minute."
He had been trying all this while to pass me and escape to the shore, but I kept always directly in front of him. He now gave up the attempt and came to standstill.
"Well?" he said.
Without preamble I gave out the text of the address I was about to deliver to him.
"I love your daughter Phyllis, Mr. Derrick. She loves me. In fact, we are engaged," I said.
He went under as if he had been seized with cramp. It was a little trying having to argue with a man, of whom one could not predict with certainty that at any given moment he would not be under water. It tended to spoil one's flow of eloquence. The best of arguments is useless if the listener suddenly disappears in the middle of it.
However, I persevered.
"Mr. Derrick," I said, as his head emerged, "you are naturally surprised."
"You—you—you"
So far from cooling him, liberal doses of water seemed to make him more heated.
"You impudent scoundrel!"
He said that—not I. What I said was more gentlemanly, more courteous, on a higher plane altogether.
"I said winningly: "Mr. Derrick, cannot we let bygones be bygones?"
From his expression I gathered that we could not.
I continued. I was under the unfortunate necessity of having to condense my remarks. I was not able to let myself go as I could have wished, for time was an important consideration. Erelong, swallowing water at his present rate, the professor must inevitably become waterlogged. It behooved me to be succinct.
"I have loved your daughter," I said rapidly, "ever since I first saw her. I learned last night that she loved me. But she will not marry me without your consent. Stretch your arms out straight from the shoulders and fill your lungs well, and you can't sink. So I have come this morning to ask for your consent. I know we have not been on the best of terms lately."
"You"
"For Heaven's sake, don't try to talk. Your one chance of remaining on the surface is to keep your lungs well filled. The fault," I said generously, "was mine. But when you have heard my explanation, I am sure you will forgive me. There, I told you so."
He reappeared some few feet to the left. I swam up and resumed:
"When you left us so abruptly after our little dinner party, you put me in a very awkward position. I was desperately in love with your daughter, and as long as you were in the frame of mind in which you left, I could not hope to find an opportunity of telling her so. You see what a fix I was in, don't you? I thought for hours and hours, to try and find some means of bringing about a reconciliation. You wouldn't believe how hard I thought. At last, seeing you fishing one morning when I was on the Cob, it struck me all of a sudden that the very best way would be to arrange a little boating accident. I was confident that I could rescue you all right."
"You young blackguard!"
He managed to slip past me, and made for the shore again.
"Strike out—but hear me," I said, swimming by his side. "Look at the thing from the standpoint of a philosopher. The fact that the rescue was arranged oughtn't really to influence you in the least. You didn't know it at the time, therefore relatively it was not, and you were genuinely saved from a watery grave."
I felt that I was becoming a shade too metaphysical, but I could not help it. What I wanted to point out was that I had certainly pulled him out of the water, and that the fact that I had caused him to be pushed in had nothing to do with the case. Either a man is a gallant rescuer or he is not a gallant rescuer. There is no middle course. I had saved his life, for he would have drowned if he had been left to himself, and was consequently entitled to his gratitude. And that was all that there was to be said about it.
These things I endeavored to make plain to him as we swam along. But whether it was that the salt water he had swallowed dulled his intelligence or that my power of stating a case neatly was to seek, the fact remains that he reached the beach an unconvinced man.
We faced one another, dripping.
"Then may I consider," I said, "that your objections are removed? We have your consent?"
He stamped angrily, and his bare foot came down on a small but singularly sharp pebble. With a brief exclamation he seized the foot with one hand and hopped. While hopping, he delivered his ultimatum. Probably this is the only instance on record of a father adopting this attitude in dismissing a suitor.
"You may not," he said. "You may not consider any such thing. My objections were never more—absolute. You detain me in the water till I am blue, sir, blue with cold, in order to listen to the most preposterous and impudent nonsense I ever heard."
This was unjust. If he had heard me attentively from the first and avoided interruptions and not behaved like a submarine, we should have got through our little business in half the time. We might both have been dry and clothed by now.
I endeavored to point this out to him.
"Don't talk to me, sir," he roared, hobbling off across the beach to his dressing tent. "I will not listen to you. I will have nothing to do with you. I consider you impudent, sir."
"I am sure it was unintentional, Mr. Derrick."
"Isch!" he said—being the first occasion and the last on which I ever heard that remarkable word proceed from the mouth of man.
And he vanished into his tent, while I, wading in once more, swam back to the Cob and put on my clothes.
And so home, as Pepys would have said, to breakfast, feeling depressed.