"Help!" What an arresting voice! Such a rich timbre... full and melodious. I wonder if it's a natural voice, or whether its owner has had it trained? I'll let him call again. Perhaps I shall then be better able to tell. "Help!" Lovely! Rich and sonorous. But trained? I'll ask him to call again. "Sir. Will you call again? I so enjoy the quality of your voice." The man I addressed was floating precariously, just above the surface of the canal. Hi! I recognize him. It's Big Jim! "Hello, Big Jim! How good to see you." "Ivor, you big twit! Get me out of here! I'm drowning!" called Big Jim, with that poignant sadness in his voice that has all the fathers of heavily-built daughters from Thrwn to Aberfeldd shaking in their shoes. "I'm wearing my good suit, Big Jim," I replied. "Please don't ask me to rescue you," knowing as I was speaking that I should be forced to save this life, human though it was. "Save me, you fool! You'd have it on your conscience!" Even at this moment, Big Jim was in full control of his facilities. He had me there, and knew it; knew he was safe on dry land already. I peeled off my clothes, even my string vest and pants, and plunged into the water. How soft it felt, like a housemaid's knee. It was two foot six at the edge, but towards the middle it was three foot six, and three foot nine in the dead center, where the barge keels had scraped a way for themselves when carrying a full lead of pig steel. I swam over to Big Jim and gripped him, and hauled him to the bank, and climbed out, and pulled him after me. "You saved my life," he grinned, and pushed me back into the canal. "I can't bear to be beholden to anyone," Big Jim continued, as my head broke the surface, "so I'll take these," and he strolled off with my clothes. One could hear the fathers of heavily-built daughters from Thrwn to Aberfeldd beginning to tremble again. When it was dark, I left the soft water and ran stiffly home in my string vest and pants. They were already playing ping-pong in the orphanage as I passed.

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