staggering up the steep, foam-swept strand under a struggling
burden. Even after they were safely deposited on the sand. Miss
Browne and my aunt continued to shriek.

"Save, save Mr. Tubbs!" implored Aunt Jane. But Mr. Tubbs,
overlooked by all but this thoughtful friend, had cannily saved
himself. He advanced upon us dripping.

"A close call!" he sang out cheerfully. "Thought one time old Nep
had got a strangle-hold all right. Thinks I, I guess there'll be
something doing when Wall Street gets this news--that old H. H. is
food for the finny denizens of the deep!"

"Such an event, Mr. Tubbs," pronounced Violet, who had recovered
her form with surprising swiftness, "might well have sent its
vibrations through the financial arteries of the world!"

"It would have been most--most shocking!" quavered poor Aunt Jane
with feeling. She was piteously striving to extricate herself from
the folds of the green veil.

I came to her assistance. The poor plump little woman was
trembling from head to foot.

"It was a most--unusual experience," she told me as I unwound her.
"Probably extremely--unifying to the soul-forces and all that, as
Miss Browne says, but for the moment--unsettling. Is my helmet on
straight, dear? I think it is a little severe for my type of face,
don't you? There was a sweet little hat in a Fifth Avenue
shop--simple and yet so chic. I thought it just the thing, but