The long combers of the Pacific were holding their usual stately parade into Laguna Beach, Calif. Luxuriating on the sands lay seminaked figures, brown with bathing, supple with youth, ripple-thewed from exercise. Watching the rollers lazily, the loafing ones would watch little figures scooting shoreward at the forefoot of a comber, lying flat in the foam or poised excitingly erect on flying surf boards.
Out through the surf put a gasoline launch, the Thelma, with a fishing party aboard. The beach crowd watched her careen on the breakers, herded to the water's edge when...