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was discouraged. Then after a little came another idea: had he saved
Goodson's property? No, that wouldn't do--he hadn't any. His life? That
is it! Of course. Why, he might have thought of it before. This time
he was on the right track, sure. His imagination-mill was hard at work
in a minute, now.
Thereafter, during a stretch of two exhausting hours, he was busy saving
Goodson's life. He saved it in all kinds of difficult and perilous ways.
In every case he got it saved satisfactorily up to a certain point; then,
just as he was beginning to get well persuaded that it had really
happened, a troublesome detail would turn up which made the whole thing
impossible. As in the matter of drowning, for instance. In that case he
had swum out and tugged Goodson ashore in an unconscious state with a
great crowd looking on and applauding, but when he had got it all thought
out and was just beginning to remember all about it, a whole swarm of
disqualifying details arrived on the ground: the town would have known of
the circumstance, Mary would have known of it, it would glare like a
limelight in his own memory instead of being an inconspicuous service
which he had possibly rendered "without knowing its full value." And at
this point he remembered that he couldn't swim anyway.
Ah--there was a point which he had been overlooking from the start: it
had to be a service which he had rendered "possibly without knowing the
full value of it." Why, really, that ought to be an easy hunt--much
easier than those others. And sure enough, by-and-by he found it.
Goodson, years and years ago, came near marrying a very sweet and pretty
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