These buckets being too heavy for a man
to overturn to pour out the water, he bored a hole in each, and
contrived to plug the holes so that the weight of the bucket as it
bumped upon the trough prepared for it at the well's edge jogged out
the plug and sent the water running down the trough into whatever
pail or vessel stood ready to catch it. Nor is it astonishing that
he lost his temper when, after these preparations, he found the well
was not deep enough, and the water as much infected with brine as if
he had gathered it from the surface of the marsh.
It was on the day following this disappointment that, while walking
to and fro the length of his turfed garden, between three and four in
the afternoon (for his habits were methodical), he heard a child's
voice lifted on the far side of the party hedge:
"Dad!"
"Eh? What is it?" answered the voice of Captain Barker, from his new
tulip-bed, across the garden.
"What thing is this?"
"A nymph." Captain Runacles guessed by this that the four-year-old's
question had reference to one of the figure-heads disposed along the
hedge.
"What is a nymph?"
"A sort of girl."
"I don't like this sort of girl. She's got no legs."
"Come over here and look at this tulip.
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