thought cynically. Perhaps it was over now, and this was just the fellow's soul going up, up. "No, by golly, there's too much pain about it. It's lighter— The sun— It's me, and I'm out— Air!"
He struck out in leaden imitation of swimming, just to take it up where he had left off; then stopped; then began again. He was more interested in a pale thing that accompanied him, large and speckled, like a potato, but twitching round the edges, round the nostrils. "Why, it's my nose, and I've got one eye shut. How silly!" The humor of this woke him up, and now he really swam. "I 've wasted a lot of time down there," he mourned.
Something large, white, and round came rushing at him through the water. The can-buoy,—the tide was carrying him past, he must n't lose that. He lashed out for it blindly, and managed to be flung against the slope. Though it dipped, swayed, and rolled, he slowly climbed up, over barnacles and painted sheet-iron, to where he could grasp the iron ring at the top. It must have
