For a moment I was dashed by this volume of eloquence, but not for long,
for I was pledged. A wild glance round the kitchen showed me a kettle
standing empty in a corner. I seized it, and though it was heavy, swung
it to an open door near which I could see a ghostly pump. I flew out,
and seized that ghost by its long and rigid arm.
"Let me," said a voice.
It was the voice of Mr. Jack Dane.
CHAPTER XXII
"You dear!" I thought. But I only said, "How sweet of you!" in a nice,
ladylike tone. And while he pumped the wettest and coldest water I ever
felt, he drily advised me to call him "Adversity" if I found his "uses
sweet," since he wasn't to be Jack for me. What if he had known that I
always call him "Jack" to myself?
He not only pumped the kettle full, but carried it into the kitchen, and
bullied or flattered the goddesses there until they gave him the hottest
place for it on the red-hot stove. Meanwhile, as my eyes accustomed
themselves to darkness after light, I spied in the courtyard of the pump
a shed piled with wood; and my uncomfortably prophetic soul said that if
Lady Turnour were to have a fire, the woodpile and I must do the trick
together.
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