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This conclusion rather distressed me; for while the first condition was easy and natural enough, the second was no joke. I knew I was a hero; I could not doubt it, for I had been brought up to the business, and to question it would be to question the veracity of every relative I had. But try all I would I couldn’t manage to show it.

After a considerable amount of patient study, my conceptions of a hero had resolved themselves into several leading ideas, which it may be of use to the reader if I repeat here:–

1. He must save one life or more from drowning.

2. He must stop runaway horses.

3. He must rescue people from burning houses.

4. He must pull some one from under the wheels of a train.

5. He must encounter and slay a mad dog in single combat.

6. He must capture a burglar; and 7. He must interpose his body between the pistol of the assassin and the person of some individual of consequence.

In my researches I had collected a mass of information under each of these heads, and was perfectly acquainted with what was becoming in a hero in each emergency.

But, as I have said, try all I would the chance never came.

I was full of hopes when we went to the seaside that emergency number one at least might make an opening for me. I spent hours every morning on the beach watching the bathers, and longing to hear the welcome shout of distress. I sat with my boots unlaced and my coat ready to fling off at a moment’s notice. I tempted my sisters to go and bathe where the shore shelved rapidly and the ebb washed back strongly. They went, and to my chagrin were delighted with the place, and learned to swim better than I could.

There was a man who went out every morning to bathe from a boat. I was always at the pier-head watching him, but he went into the water and scrambled out of it again over the stern of the boat with ruthless regularity, and quite mistook my interest in him for admiration, which was the very last sentiment I harboured.

Once I made sure my chance had come. It was a warm day, and the shore was crowded. Most of the people had finished bathing, and were spread about the sands drying their back hair and reading their papers. One adventurous bather, however, remained in the water. I had anxiously watched him swim round the pier-head and back, ready–longing–to see him cast his hands above his head and hang out other signals of distress. But it seemed I was again to be disappointed. He came in swimming easily, and mightily pleased with himself and his performance. He was about twenty yards off his machine and I was beginning to give him up, when to my delight I saw his hands go up and his head go down, and heard what I fondly hoped was a yell of despair.

In a moment–two moments, I should say, for one of my boots was not quite enough unlaced–I was floundering in the water in my flannel shirt and trousers, striking out wildly for the spot where he had disappeared. I had gathered from the authorities I had consulted that heroes, under these circumstances, got over distances in a shorter time than it takes to record it. This was not my experience. It took me a long time to get half the way, and by that time my clothes were very heavy and I was very tired. Moreover, my man was still invisible.

Of course I could not turn back. Even if I did not succeed in fishing him out, it was a “gallant attempt,” which would be almost as good. Partly to see how the crowd was taking it, and partly to rest myself, I turned over on my back and floated. This do doubt was a tactical error; for as a rule a hero does not float out to save any one’s life. In my case it did not much matter, for the first thing I perceived as I turned was my drowning man’s head bobbing up merrily between me and the shore, having enjoyed his long dive and wholly unaware of the “gallant attempt” which was being made to rescue him from a watery grave.