it is not one of my
accomplishments."

"I ain't goin' to try just yet," Mr. Hucks answered with creditable
composure. "They 're bound to fetch help between 'em with the row they
're making. Just hark to the d--d dog."

Sure enough the alarm had been given. A voice at that moment hailed
from one of the boats across the water to know what was the matter, and
half a dozen porters, canal-men, night watchmen from the warehouses,
came running around the head of the basin; but before they could arrive,
a man dashed out of the darkness behind the two watchers, tore past
them, and sprang for the boat. They heard the thud of his feet as he
alit on her short fore-deck, and an instant later, as he leaned over the
stem and gripped Dr. Glasson's coat-collar, the light of the bobbing
lantern showed them his face. It was Sam Bossom.

He had lifted the Doctor waist-high from the water before the other
helpers sprang on board and completed the rescue. The poor man was
hauled over the bows and stretched on the fore-deck, where he lay
groaning while they brought the boat alongside the quay's edge. By this
time a small crowd had gathered, and was being pressed back from the
brink and exhorted by a belated policeman.

It appeared as they lifted him ashore that the Doctor, beside the
inconvenience of a stomachful of dirty canal water, was suffering
considerable pain. In his fright (the dog had not actually bitten him)
he had blundered, and struck his knee-cap violently against a bollard
close by the water's edge, and staggering under the anguish of it, had
lost his footing and collapsed overboard. Then, finding that his
fingers could take no hold on the slippery concrete wall of the basin,
with his sound leg he had pushed himself out from it and grasped the
barge's head-rope. All this, between groans, he managed to explain to
the policeman, who, having sent for an ambulance stretcher, called for
volunteers to carry him home; for home Dr. Glasson insisted on being
taken, putting aside--and with great firmness--the suggestion that he
would be better in hospital.

Sam Blossom was among the first to offer his services. But here his
master interposed.

"No, no, my lad," said Mr. Hucks genially, "you've behaved pretty
creditable already, and now you can give the others a turn. The man's
all right, or will be by to-morrow; and as it happens," he added in a
lower tone, "I want five minutes' talk with you, and at once."

They wa