"Pretty good paddlin', I guess. Vhat's your name?" "Armstrong." "Freshman?" "Yes." "Ever do any racing?" "A little." "Here, let's see if you can svim fifty yards fast." "O, but I'm not in training." "Don't make no difference about dat. Svim up one length and back again. I see your time. Come on, I tink you can svim fast." Frank, thus urged, took a racing dive, paddled easily to the other end of the pool, turned leisurely and came back to the starting point. "Umph!" grunted the swimming instructor. "Dirty-five seconds, dat's bad. You ought to do it five seconds bedder!" Frank grinned, thinking he was nicely out of the difficulty, for he argued with himself that in justice to his work he could not give the time necessary this year at least to go in for swimming. But he reckoned without Max who stood squinting at him. "Now," said the instructor, "vhen you've got your vind again I vant you to do dat over again. Und doan loaf along so much, move dose arms and legs a little bid faster." Jimmy laughed, for he knew Frank was trying to get out of swimming training. But Frank was fairly caught now, and there was nothing for him to do but to swim the distance again. He perched on the edge of the pool end, and balanced for the start as Burton had shown him. He took the water as cleanly as a knife and using a graceful but powerful crawl shot down to the further end, turned half under water and came back with a quickening gait until his hand touched the pool end where Max stood with his eyes glued on the watch. "Dirty seconds," said the instructor half to himself. And then to Frank. "Vhy didn't you dell me dat before? I vant you to come here effery day and svim. Dis Freshman bunch of mine ain't no good. You'll help? Who showed you how to svim like dat anyway?" "O, a fellow named Burton." "Who?" "Burton, one of your Yale captains." "O, Burton, hey? Are you de fellar Armstrong dat svam down at Travers Island last summer?" Frank nodded. "Py jiminy, vhy didn't you dell me dat before? Dat settles it. Now you got to come and help out this Freshman bunch." That was the end of Frank's resolution not to get mixed up in athletics until the baseball practice opened. Every day found him at the pool, and under the careful guidance of the instructor he improved steadily, and when the Freshman-Sophomore relay race came off he was selected as the man to swim the last relay for his class. This he did so well that, although starting with a handicap of ten feet, he beat out his opponent by the breadth of a hand, and won the event for the Freshmen.