but cowardice is not an indulgence for one of my race, so I screwed up
my lips and pricked my ears to learn my duty in the unpleasant
emergency of drowning.

"It doesn't mean being drowned yourself," Rupert continued, "but what
to do when another person has been drowned."

The emergency was undoubtedly easier, and I gave a cheerful attention
as Rupert began to question us.

"Supposing a man had been drowned in the canal, and was brought
ashore, and you were the only people there, what would you do with
him?"

I was completely nonplussed. "I felt quite sure I could do nothing
with him, he would be so heavy; but I felt equally certain that this
was not the answer which Rupert expected, so I left the question to
Henrietta's readier wit. She knitted her thick eyebrows for some
minutes, partly with perplexity, and partly because of the sunshine
reflected from the cucumber frame, and then said,

"We should bury him in a vault; Charlie and I _couldn't_ dig a grave
deep enough."

I admired Henrietta's foresight, but Rupert was furious.

"How _silly_ you are!" he exclaimed, knocking over the top of the
rhubarb-pot table and the empty glass in his wrath. "Of course I don't
mean a dead man. I mean what would you do to bring a partly drowned
man to life again?"