"All right," said I, and away we started, singing at the top of our voices, and made our way to a huge sheet of water we could see in the distance. At last we arrived at its shores only to find that its greatest depth was about six inches. For the first time since I knew him I found that Libby sometimes did read his Bible. Gazing at the fraud with an air of resigned disgust he said thoughtfully, "Well, Bobbie, Simon Peter would not need a hell of a lot of faith to take a stroll on the waves of that blankety-blank lake." We determined to bathe somewhere. There were lots of dykes, but they were either too shallow, too dirty, or too muddy to be swimable. Hailing a farmer, we inquired of him where we could find a dyke deep enough to swim in. Luckily he understood my execrable lingua franca, and he led the way to a corner of one of his fields; here a dyke had widened out to about thirty feet. The water, so said the farmer, was about ten feet deep. We did not doubt him, but the color scheme of the water was something even our seasoned tastes did not fancy. Libby looked at the water, then at me, then at the farmer. "Hell!" said he, "I came out to have a swim and here goes." Taking off his few clothes he dived straight into the green mess. He emerged, swam around for a minute, then climbed the bank. I howled with laughter. Libby, like Esau, was a very hairy man, and the green spawn clung to his hairy hide in long streamers, while from his head hung long green veils almost to his heels. "Oh, look at the bride," came a voice over my shoulder, and a small party of our immediate crowd came up. "Isn't she perfectly sweet?" "Yes, but isn't it a pity she's bow-legged!" "Congratulations." This to me. "You are some money saver, Bub, all you have to do when she wants a new dress is to pitch her into the bridal vat." "Oh, come to me sticky embrace," said Batch. "Sure," ejaculates Lib, and straightway leaps at Batch, encircling him lovingly with his spawn-covered arms. The party scattered to right and left, for they feared that the fickle bride would shortly transfer "her" affections to any one of them. Lib, with a yell of satisfaction, relinquished his hold on Batch, scurried to a shallow but clean patch of water farther down the dyke, and was soon rid of his nuptial garments. I had to be satisfied with a wash in the same place. And now, great joy and satisfaction came to cheer the hearts of the Fifth. The Colonel was seen to sneak guiltily from the farmhouse. Stealing away to a spot, where he fondly imagined he was unobserved, he sat down and divested himself of his upper garments. Then with a furious wrench he tore off his shirt and, to the observers' unholy joy, he commenced to scratch! scratch! scratch! Having gone well over his bare hide, he turned his attention to his shirt. What joy! The Old Man was lousy.