For a moment he was taken for an apparition of the Evil One; and when he fled bawling into his mother's arms he brought his worthy parent under momentary suspicion of intimacy with striped devils.
But when she began to pat his naked back and murmur: "There, ther-r-r-e! Mother's boy is all safe!" and other similar expressions of assurance, the horrified spectators began to grasp the situation, and restored her good character.
It was some time before Biscuit could utter intelligible words, although his mother fancied she heard among his tearful babblings the names of several fish. But when he managed to convey the idea that there was some kind of an initiation, she began to understand his highly decorated exterior. Then suddenly it dawned on her that the painted decorations were the only ones that he had on. In that panicky moment she wrapped him in her best white shawl and started to conduct him towards a small door that led into the session-room, when Mrs. Mandeville again entered the arena.
"This," she exclaimed sarcastically, "might be a good time to get at the _truth_ about those wonderful swimming lessons!"
Mrs. Westfall stopped in her tracks. "Perhaps it would," she said with a murderous look at Mrs. Mandeville; and, turning Biscuit around so that he faced the meeting she asked in a wheedling tone: "You _could_ swim all right, couldn't you, dearie?"
"Don't know!" she demanded giving his shoulder an angry shake. "Don't know! _Why_ don't you know?"
"I--uh--uh--ain't been in the wu-wu-water yet!"
A crimson flush spread over Mrs. Westfall's scowling visage as she cried, "Oh! You haven't, eh! You haven't!"
She seized him by one of his unornamented ears and marched him down the aisle towards the front door, where she relieved him of the shawl and pointing a trembling finger at the door almost screamed: "Get out of that door!... Go down to that swimming-hole just as fast as your legs will carry you, and don't you come back till you've _found out_ whether you can swim or not!"
And while the question of taking a correspondence course in _Philanthropy--the Science of Giving_ was being gently but everlastingly laid on the table, Biscuit was retracing his steps to the swimming-hole with less precipitation and much more modesty than he had left it. More than once he longed for the cartoonist's favorite barrel as he dodged from tree to tree to escape the prying gaze of an inconsiderate public.