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"It is sent down by means of an air-pump," said Edgar, who took on himself the duty of explaining. "Dear me!" returned Miss Pritty, elevating her eyebrows in surprise; "I always thought that pumps were used only for pumping up water." "Och! No, Miss," said Rooney, "they're largely used for pumping up beer in London." "Now, David, are you all right?" asked Joe.
Mrs Lynch said she was a jewel, and that was extraordinary praise from the strapping widow, who seldom complimented her sex, whatever she may have felt. Mrs Welsh said she was a "dear, pritty creetur'," and laughter-loving little Mrs Nobbs, the wife of a jovial harum-scarum blacksmith, pronounced her a "perfect darling."
At this point Miss Pritty gasped "oh!" and fainted at least she went into a perfect semblance of the state of coma, but as she recovered suddenly, and appealed to the letter again with intense earnestness, it may have been something else that was the matter. She resumed her perusal:
Miss Pritty discovered that housekeeping was her forte, and that she possessed powers of comprehension, in regard to financial matters connected with the payment of debts and dividends, such as she had all her previous life believed to be unattainable anywhere, save in the Bank of England or on the Stock Exchange.
"My father detained me," said Aileen, seating herself at the table, while her volatile friend put lumps of sugar into the cups, with a tender yet sprightly motion of the hand, as if she were doing the cups a special kindness as indeed she was, when preparing one of them to touch the lips of Aileen. "Naughty man, why did he detain you?" said Miss Pritty.
What do you say, Dewey? 'It's a bad mistake, said Dewey, the partner, 'and we are making a good many, but it's pritty hard to discharge a man.
A few minutes more and our divers were safely beyond the chance of capture, making for the mainland under a steady breeze. The pump used by Denayrouze of Paris, besides being very simple in its parts and action, possesses an air-reservoir which renders a cessation of the pump-action for a few minutes of no importance. Turn we now to Miss Pritty and a pretty sight she is when we turn to her!
I am sorry, Miss Pritty, that I have put you to so much unnecessary trouble, but of course I could not foresee what was impending. All I can do now is to thank you, and pay your passage back in the same vessel with ourselves if you are disposed to go. That vessel, I may tell you, has been selected by me with strict regard to my altered position.
"'Twas a narrer rub, boy," rejoined the trapper. "Yis, I can see 'twas a narrer rub ye had of it, and the holes in yer shirt show that the sparks was fallin' pritty thick and pritty hot, too, when ye come out of the shanty. How does the stroke tell on ye, boy?" continued the old man, interrogatively. "Ye be pullin' a slashin' stroke, ye see, and there's five mile more of it, ef there's a rod."
Miss Pritty, resenting the tone of the request as much as it was in her nature to resent anything, went off instanter, in a gush of tender love and sympathy, and took passage in the first ship that presented itself as being bound for the China seas. She did not know much about ships. Her maritime ideas were vague.
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