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"So," exclaimed the stout seaman, stopping short in his rolling walk, and gazing earnestly into his captain's face, "I'm to be sold to a woman?" "With your own consent entirely, Master Bumpus," said Gascoyne with a smile. "Come, Jo," cried Henry, gaily, "I see you like the prospect, and feel assured that you and I shall be good friends. Give us your flipper, my boy!"
Professor Bumpus is seated in front of a row of women, horn-combers and gold-beaders, or somewhere about that range of life, looking so credulous, that, if any Second-Advent Miller or Joe Smith should come along, he could string the whole lot of them on his cheapest lie, as a boy strings a dozen "shiners" on a stripped twig of willow. Tape round the head, 22 inches.
They would never be apt to forget the strange things that had come to them however, while marooned on Sturgeon Island; and often when they pored over the Government charts that Thad kept, they could see again in memory many of those adventures looming up along the mental horizon the wreck of the boat; the lively time they had getting ashore; the discovery of the fish packing cabin; the mysterious disappearance of Bumpus; how he was found again under such remarkable conditions; the blowing up of the poachers' boat; and last but not least the opportune arrival of their mates with the other craft.
I thought I was over them tricks years ago!" exclaimed Bumpus, shivering. "If they're agoing to take me again I see my finish; because some night I'll walk off a precipice, and that'll be the end of me."
Altogether, he was so wild and strong in appearance, and so furious in his onset, that it was impossible to believe he had been half dead little more than an hour before; but then, as we have before remarked, Bumpus was hard to kill!
Thad could see him industriously hunting along the lapels of his khaki jacket, as if for a weapon in the shape of a pin; and having secured what he wanted Bumpus carefully reached out both hands, one toward Step Hen and the other in the direction of Davy Jones. Then, with a low squeal of delight, he gave an outward motion with each hand.
Hannah and Janet knew very well he had no intention of doing this, and Hannah did not attempt to conceal her incredulity. As a matter of fact, Lise sometimes did insist on a "party." "I want you should bring her back by ten o'clock. That's late enough for a girl who works to be out. It's late enough for any girl." "Sure, Mis' Bumpus," Wiley would respond easily.
Dan drew a clasp-knife from his pocket, and with one stroke set Bumpus free. "Shoulder high!" yelled a voice; "Hurrah!" A wild rush was made at the table. Jo's executioners were overturned and trampled under foot, and the table, with himself and his young advocate sprawling on it, was raised on the shoulders of the crowd and borne off in triumph.
John Bumpus allowed the youth to seize and shake a "flipper," which would have done credit to a walrus, both in regard to shape and size. After a short pause he said, "Whether you and me shall be good friends, young man, depends entirely on the respect which you shew to the family of the Bumpuses said family havin' comed over to Ireland with the Conkerer in the year, ah!
Hannah Bumpus regarded a parlour as necessary to a respectable family as a wedding ring to a virtuous woman. Janet and Lise would be growing up, there would be young men, and no place to see them save the sidewalks. The fear that haunted her came true, and she never was reconciled.
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