"Which I call very bad form," said the punctilious Van Bibber, "even
though they are engaged."
MY DISREPUTABLE FRIEND, MR. RAEGEN
Rags Raegen was out of his element. The water was his proper element--
the water of the East River by preference. And when it came to
"running the roofs," as he would have himself expressed it, he was
"not in it."
On those other occasions when he had been followed by the police, he
had raced them toward the river front and had dived boldly in from the
wharf, leaving them staring blankly and in some alarm as to his
safety. Indeed, three different men in the precinct, who did not know
of young Raegen's aquatic prowess, had returned to the station-house
and seriously reported him to the sergeant as lost, and regretted
having driven a citizen into the river, where he had been
unfortunately drowned. It was even told how, on one occasion, when
hotly followed, young Raegen had dived off Wakeman's Slip, at East
Thirty-third Street, and had then swum back under water to the
landing-steps, while the policeman and a crowd of stevedores stood
watching for him to reappear where he had sunk. It is further related
that he had then, in a spirit of recklessness, and in the possibility
of the policeman's failing to recognize him, pushed his way through
the crowd from the rear and plunged in to rescue the supposedly
drowned man.
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