"Boxes of candy, gloves, or any truck you care to risk," Ernestine added.

"But I don't know Mrs. Forrest's records, either," Graham protested, after having taken on the bets. "However, if in five minutes--"

"Ten minutes," Paula said, "and to start from opposite ends of the tank. Is that fair? Any touch is a catch." Graham looked his hostess over with secret approval. She was clad, not in the single white silk slip she evidently wore only for girl parties, but in a coquettish imitation of the prevailing fashion mode, a suit of changeable light blue and green silk--almost the color of the pool; the skirt slightly above the knees whose roundedness he recognized; with long stockings to match, and tiny bathing shoes bound on with crossed ribbons. On her head was a jaunty swimming cap no jauntier than herself when she urged the ten minutes in place of five.

Rita Wainwright held the watch, while Graham walked down to the other end of the hundred-and-fifty-foot tank.

"Paula, you'll be caught if you take any chances," Dick warned. "Evan Graham is a real fish man."

"I guess Paula'll show him a few, even without the pipe," Bert bragged loyally. "And I'll bet she can out-dive him."

"There you lose," Dick answered. "I saw the rock he dived from at Huahoa. That was after his time, and after the death of Queen Nomare. He was only a youngster--twenty-two; he had to be to do it. It was off the peak of the Pau-wi Rock--one hundred and twenty-eight feet by triangulation. And he couldn't do it legitimately or technically with a swan-dive, because he had to clear two lower ledges while he was in the air. The upper ledge of the two, by their own traditions, was the highest the best of the kanakas had ever dared since their traditions began. Well, he did it. He became tradition. As long as the kanakas of Huahoa survive he will remain tradition--Get ready, Rita. Start on the full minute."

"It's almost a shame to play tricks on so reputable a swimmer," Paula confided to them, as she faced her guest down the length of the tank and while both waited the signal.

"He may get you before you can turn the trick," Dick warned again. And then, to Bert, with just a shade of anxiety: "Is it working all right? Because if it isn't, Paula will have a bad five seconds getting out of it."




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