Tommy was clinging to it, and the boy to him, and, at some risk, Corp got them both ashore, where they lay gasping like fish in a creel.
The boy was the first to rise to look for his fishing-rod, and he was surprised to find no six-pounder at the end of it.

"She has broke the line again!" he said; for he was sure then and ever afterwards that a big one had pulled him in.
Corp slapped him for his ingratitude; but the man who had saved this boy's life wanted no thanks.

"Off to your home with you, wherever it is," he said to the boy, who obeyed silently; and then to Corp: "He is a little fool, Corp, but not such a fool as I am." He lay on his face, shivering, not from cold, not from shock, but in a horror of himself.
I think it may fairly be said that he had done a brave if foolhardy thing; it was certainly to save the boy that he had jumped, and he had given himself a moment's time in which to draw back if he chose, which vastly enhances the merit of the deed.

But sentimentality had been there also, and he was now shivering with a presentiment of the length to which it might one day carry him.
They lit a fire among the rocks, at which he dried his clothes, and then they set out for home, Corp doing all the talking.

"What a town there will be about this in Thrums!" was his text; and he was surprised when Tommy at last broke silence by saying passionately: "Never speak about this to me again, Corp, as long as you live.
Promise me that.