Accordingly she went out to him in a state of high indignation.

"What do you think you are?" she cried, balancing accounts by boxing his
ears first on one side and then on the other, "a torpedo! What are you
doing here at all? What do you want?"

"I don't want nothin'," explained the boy, rubbing his head; "I've
brought a gent down."

"A gent?" said Amenda, looking round, but seeing no one. "What gent?"

"A stout gent in a straw 'at," answered the boy, staring round him
bewilderedly.

"Well, where is he?" asked Amenda.

"I dunno," replied the boy, in an awed voice; "'e was a-standin' there,
at the other end of the punt, a-smokin' a cigar."

Just then a head appeared above the water, and a spent but infuriated
swimmer struggled up between the houseboat and the bank.

"Oh, there 'e is!" cried the boy delightedly, evidently much relieved at
this satisfactory solution of the mystery; "'e must ha' tumbled off the
punt."

"You're quite right, my lad, that's just what he did do, and there's your
fee for assisting him to do it." Saying which, my dripping friend, who
had now scrambled upon deck, leant over, and following Amenda's excellent
example, expressed his feelings upon the boy's head.