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Kenelm, who was now hard at work at the pump-handle, only replied by a gracious nod. But as he seldom lost an opportunity for reflection, he said to himself, while he laved his face in the stream from the spout, "One can't wonder why every small man thinks it so pleasant to let down a big one, when a father asks a stranger to let down his own son for even fancying that he is not small beer.
They lead the goats from house to house, and milk whatever quantity their customers want at their own door a custom that we can readily understand will never become widely popular among AngloSaxon milkmen, since it leaves no possible chance for pump-handle combinations and corresponding profits.
When he returned to London after seeing his parents depart for Italy, he met in his first walk in the city streets his erst fellow-collegian and officer, Lieutenant Thomas Tantillion, in England on leave, who almost hallooed with joy at sight of him, shaking him by the hand as if his arm had been a pump-handle, and then thrusting his own arm through it, and insisting affectionately on dragging him along the street that he might pour forth his renewed protestations of affection and the story of his adventures.
It was perfectly good form, also, to get a boy, if you could, to shut his eyes, and then lead him into a mud-puddle or a thicket of briers or nettles, or to fool him in any heartless way, such as promising to pump easy when he put his mouth to the pump-spout, and then coming down on the pump-handle with a rush that flooded him with water and sent him off blowing the tide from his nostrils like a whale.
He had a pump-handle Shake for every Man he met, and after the second Day he called him Old Fellow and inquired as to his Health in a Tone of trembling Solicitude and picked little pieces of Lint off his Coat. "I know it's Guff," the Man would say after the Gusher had passed on, "but my Stars! He can ladle out that Soothing Syrup and never spill a Drop."
"Tall timbers of Taunton!" burst out Dick enthusiastically. "You've solved the problem of the poor man's car. All the owner of an Electric Monarch has to do is to pump a little pump-handle or press a little button and he's off without it costing him a cent. My story will sure make a big sensation!"
Then he got his troop-horse to climb up and stand upon it, while this strong-armed constable took hold of the "pump-handle" and worked his way across the trestle railway bridge many feet above the surging river. One can easily see what a desperate risk this was to take in cold blood. The big bronco had been broken enough for use on the solid earth by an expert.
The old fellow was cross and surly, and evidently in a bad humour, and most decidedly refused to shake hands, while he growled out words of annoyance and even threatening at the coming of a missionary among his people. The missionary, however, was not to be easily rebuffed, and so reaching down he took hold of his hand, and in a pump-handle sort of style gave it quite a shaking.
The seaman looked at him with a heavy frown. "You young slip of a pump-handle, what d'ye mean?" "The king's orders," said Dan, pointing to Adams, while the rest of the Pitcairners seemed awestruck by his presumption. The frown slowly left the visage of Jack Brace. He shut his eyes, smiled benignly, and delivered a series of heavy puffs from the starboard side of his mouth.
"A new man she liked better that's bad!" "Yes," said Lucetta, looking pained at a boy who was swinging the town pump-handle. "It is bad!
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