"And don’t you mind the fact," said Bill Breakstone, "that the alligators of the Rio Grande, famous for their size and appetite, like to lie around in lovely cool pools like this and bite the bare legs of careless boys who come down to bathe." Phil felt something grasp his right leg and pull hard. He uttered a yell, and then, putting his hand on Breakstone’s brown head, which was rising to the surface, convulsively thrust him back under. But Breakstone came up three yards away, pushed the hair out of his eyes, and laughed. "I’m the only alligator that’s in the stream," he said, "but I did give you a scare for a moment. You are bound to admit that, Sir Philip, Duke of Texas and Prince of Mexico." "I admit it readily," replied Phil, and, noticing that Breakstone was now looking the other way, he dived quietly and ran his finger nails sharply along his comrade’s bare calf. Breakstone leaped almost wholly out of the water and cried: "Great Heavens, a shark is eating me up!" Phil came up and said quietly: "There are no sharks in the Rio Grande, Mr. William Breakstone. You never find sharks up a river hundreds of miles from the ocean. Now, I did give you a scare for a moment, you will admit that, will you not, Sir William of the Shout, the Shark, and the Fright?" "I admit it, of course, and now we are even," said Breakstone. "Give me your hand on it." Phil promptly reached out his hand, and Breakstone, seizing it, dragged him under. But Phil, although surprised, pulled down on Breakstone’s hand with all his might, and Breakstone went under with him. Both came up spluttering, laughing, and enjoying themselves hugely, while Arenberg swam calmly to a safe distance. "You are a big boy, Herr Bill Breakstone," he said. "You will never grow up." "I don’t want to," replied Bill Breakstone calmly. "When it makes me happy all through and through just to be swimming around in a pool of nice cool water, what’s the use of growing up? Answer me that, Hans Arenberg." "I can’t," replied the German. "It isn’t in me to give an answer to such a question." "I suppose we’ve got to go out at last, dress again, and go back to work," said Breakstone lugubriously. "It’s a hard world for us men, Phil." "One iss not a fish, and, being not a fish," said Arenberg, "one must go out on dry land some time or other to rest, and the some time has now come." They swam to land, but Bill Breakstone began to plead. "Let’s lie here on the sand and luxuriate for a space, Sir Philip of the Rio Grande and Count Hans of the Llano Estacado, which is Spanish for the Staked Plain, which I have seen more than once," said Bill Breakstone. "The sand is white, it is clean, and it has been waiting a long time for us to lie upon it, close our eyes, and forget everything except that we are happy." "It iss a good idea," said Arenberg. "There are times when it iss well to be lazy, only most men think it iss all the time."