This is the way it happened.
As Dick, with a balance of more than a hundred dollars in the
savings bank, might fairly consider himself a young man of property,
he thought himself justified in occasionally taking a half holiday
from business, and going on an excursion. On Wednesday afternoon
Henry Fosdick was sent by his employer on an errand to that part of
Brooklyn near Greenwood Cemetery. Dick hastily dressed himself in
his best, and determined to accompany him.
The two boys walked down to the South Ferry, and, paying their two
cents each, entered the ferry boat. They remained at the stern, and
stood by the railing, watching the great city, with its crowded
wharves, receding from view. Beside them was a gentleman with two
children,--a girl of eight and a little boy of six. The children
were talking gayly to their father. While he was pointing out some
object of interest to the little girl, the boy managed to creep,
unobserved, beneath the chain that extends across the boat, for the
protection of passengers, and, stepping incautiously to the edge
of the boat, fell over into the foaming water.
At the child's scream, the father looked up, and, with a cry of
horror, sprang to the edge of the boat. He would have plunged in,
but, being unable to swim, would only have endangered his own life,
without being able to save his child.
"My child!" he exclaimed in anguish,--"who will save my child? A
thousand--ten thousand dollars to any one who will save him!"
There chanced to be but few passengers on board at the time, and
nearly all these were either in the cabins or standing forward.
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