"Plain and fancy swimming and diving, surfboarding, how to dodge the breakers, how to cheat the undertow, rescue and resuscitation--can you swim, my lad?"
"We have a very fine course in swimming, madam. We positively guarantee to teach swimming in ten lessons or money refunded. All the latest strokes: overhand, trudgeon, crawl, shoulder-stroke--"
"No, not to-day," interrupted Mrs. Westfall. "It's too dangerous. I don't want my boy going into the water."
"Aw, mama, let me learn to swim!" whined Biscuit. "I'm the only boy in town that can't swim!"
"Pardon me, madam, but it is no more dangerous than playing the piano! By our up-to-date system the student is taught to swim without so much as touching the tip of his finger to the water!"
"A lot of expensive apparatus, I suppose."
"No apparatus whatever! We teach it in the home! Only the smooth top of a kitchen table is required. Individual instruction by mail. And bear in mind that our iron-bound guarantee goes with every course. Money back if not satisfactory."
"How much does it cost?" she asked weakly.
"A mere trifle, madam, when we consider that it may be the means of saving this little fellow's life!"
He laid a blank on the table and produced a fountain pen.
"But the expense?" insisted Mrs. Westfall as she saw him filling out the blank.
"Not enough for a person in your circumstances to consider-- Sign there."
She took the pen and poised it uncertainly over the dotted line. "Before I sign this I ought to know--"
"A mere trifle--sign there--an inconsequential nothing--on the dotted line, please--two dollars--"
"Two dollars a lesson, with our iron-bound guarantee. Thank you, madam! Many thanks! Keep the duplicate for your own reference. And I am leaving you a complete catalogue of our courses. You may be interested in something else later on. And now I will wish you--"
And thus it happened that Biscuit Westfall learned to swim.
Undoubtedly the proudest moment of his whole life was the one when he received his diploma from the Inter-State Correspondence School. To the unprejudiced eye this diploma looked more like the document that is drawn forth from the spy's boot in the war melodrama, than the sheepskin of a scholastic institution. It was decorated with stars and garters, wafers and lozenges; but to Biscuit's unsophisticated gaze it was quite the most important document since the Declaration of Independence.