It was a red-headed boy from across the tracks on his good behavior at the swimming-hole above the dam that I first saw swim hand-over-hand, or “sailor-fashion” as we called it, rightly or wrongly, I know not. I can hear now the crisp, staccato little smack his hand gave the water as he reached forward. It has ever since been my envy and despair. It is so knowing, so “sporty.” I class it with being able to wear a pink-barred shirt front with a diamond-cluster pin in it; with having my clothes so nobby and stylish that one thread more of modishness would be beyond the human power to endure; with being genuinely fond of horseracing; with being a first-class poker player, I mean a really first-class one; with being able to swallow a drink of whisky as if I liked it instead of having to choke it down with a shudder; with knowing truly great men like Fitzsimmons, or whoever it is that is great now, so as to be able to slap him on the back and say: “Why, hello! Bob, old boy, how are you?” with being delighted with the company of actors, instead of finding them as thin as tissue-paper--what wouldn't I give if I could be like that? My life has been a sad one. But I might find some comfort in it yet if I coin only get that natty little spat on the water when I lunge forward swimming overhand. We used to think the Old Swimming-hole was a bully place, but I know better now. The sycamore leaned well out over the water, and there was a trapeze on the branch that grew parallel with the shore, but the water near it was never deep enough to dive into. And that is another occasion of humiliation. I can't dive worth a cent. When I go down to the slip behind Fulton Market--they sell fish at Fulton Market; just follow your nose and you can't miss it--and see the rows of little white monkeys doing nothing but diving, I realize that the Old Swimming-hole with all its beauties, its green leafiness, its clean, long grass to lie upon while drying in the sun, or to pull out and bite off the tender, chrome-yellow ends, was but a provincial, country-fake affair. There were no watermelon rinds there, no broken berry-baskets, no orange peel, no nothing. All the fish in it were just common live ones. And there was no diving. But at the real, proper city swimming-place all the little white monkeys can dive. Each is gibbering and shrieking: “Hey, Chim-meel Chimmee! Hey, Chim-mee! Chimmee! Hey, CHIM-MEEEE! How'ss t 'iss?” crossing himself and tipping over head first, coming up so as to “lay his hair,” giving a shaking snort to clear his nose and mouth of water, regaining the ladder with three overhand strokes (every one of them with that natty little spat that I can't get), climbing up to the string-piece and running for Chimmy, red-eyed, shivering, and dripping, to ask: “How wass Cat?” And I can't dive for a cent--that is, I can't dive from a great elevation. I set my teeth and vow I just will dive from ten feet above the water, and every time it gets down to a poor,