"I don't want any of your kind of help." With that Hi appeared to forget his recent complaint of "cramp," for he made a lusty plunge toward the pier and pulled himself up.
Then, an instant later, he must have remembered, for he assumed an expression of pain and limped.
"There's that mean cramp again," he muttered.

"I'd have won by a good many yards if it hadn't been for that." Some of the Central Grammar boys nearby were impolite enough to laugh incredulously.
"Oh, I've dropped my handbag into the river!" exclaimed one woman to another suddenly, at the end of the pier.
The other woman turned, giving a quick, startled glance toward the water.
"I---I don't know how it happened," gasped the loser.

"There it is, away down the stream, floating toward that boathouse.
Oh, Master Prescott, do you feel able to go and get it for me ?" "I'll do it with pleasure, madam," Dick nodded.

He looked for a moment.

Then, seeing a black floating object, he started after it, his stroke apparently none the weaker after his swift race.
It had floated nearly under the boathouse at the water end.