"You shouldn't interrupt," said Rupert, frowning. I am inclined now to think that he could not answer my question off-hand; for though he looked cross then, after referring to the book he answered me: "It's a fire, or drowning, or an apoplectic fit, or anything of that sort." After which explanation, he hurried on. If what he said next came out of his own head, or whether he had learned it by heart, I never knew. "There is no stronger sign of good-breeding than presence of mind in an—" "—apoplectic fit," I suggested. I was giving the keenest attention, and Rupert had hesitated, the wind having blown over a leaf too many of the yellow leather book. "An _emergency_," he shouted, when he had found his place. "Now we'll have one each time. The one for to-day is—How to act in a case of drowning." To speak the strict truth, I would rather not have thought about drowning. I had my own private horror over a neighbouring mill-dam, and I had once been very much frightened by a spring-tide at the sea; 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?" "That wasn't what you _said_," cried Henrietta, tossing her head. "I let you come to my lecture," grumbled Rupert bitterly, as he stooped to set his table right, "and this is the way you behave!" "I'm very sorry, Rupert dear!" said Henrietta. "Indeed, I only mean to do my best, and I do like your lecture so very much!"