small-town lad who could take avail of any pond or any quiet stretch of
river on the spur of the moment. He waded in quickly up to his waist, and
then took an intrepid header. His lithe young legs and arms threw
themselves about hither and yon. After a moment or two he got on his feet
and made his way back across a yard of fine shingle to the sand itself. He
was sputtering and gasping, and the long yellow hair, which usually lay in
a flat clean sweep from forehead to occiput, now sprawled in a grotesque
pattern round his temples.

"B-r-r! It _is_ cold, sure enough. But jump in. The air will be all
right. I'll be back with you in a moment."

Randolph advanced to the edge, and felt in turn. It _was_ cold. But he
meant to manage it here, just as he had managed with the sand-slopes.

Two heads bobbed on the water where but one had bobbed before.
Ceremonially, at least, the rite was complete.

"It's never so cold the second time," declared Cope encouragingly. "One dip
doesn't make a swim, any more than one swallow--"

He flashed his soles in the sunlight and was once again immersed, gulping,
in a maelstrom of his own making.

"Twice, to oblige you," said Randolph. "But no more. I'll leave the rest to
the sun and the air."

Cope, out again, ran up and down the sands for a hundred feet or so. "I
know something better than this," he declared presently. He threw himself
down and rolled himself in the abundance of fine, dry, clean sand.