He flung the shutters wide as he spoke, and the light streamed through two windows upon a great heap of blue cotton material, apparently enveloped in a network of fine ropes. Here and there lay other ropes neatly coiled, and close beside the blue heap was what looked like a large round hamper without a cover.
‘Waal,’ demanded Ephraim anxiously, after a somewhat protracted pause, during which Lucius glanced vacantly around the workshop, ‘what d’ ye think of her? I ’lowed I’d try and fix her up fer ye, seein’ ye war so sot.’
‘For me?’ echoed Lucius. ‘What is for me? I don’t see anything.’
‘Don’t see nuthin’, don’t ye?’ chuckled Ephraim. ‘I reckon ye see without onderstandin’. What d’ ye ’magine this is?’
He took up an armful of the blue fabric as he spoke and let it fall again in a heap.
‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ answered Lucius.
‘Co’se ye don’t; co’se ye don’t,’ said Ephraim, rubbing his hands together, and grinning delightedly. ‘Ye never see nuthin’ like her before, I bet.’
‘I have not,’ returned Lucius, now thoroughly awake, and examining everything with great curiosity. ‘What a queer-looking——Oh! why, Grizzly, if I don’t believe it’s a balloon!’
Ephraim sprang off the ground and twirled round in the air for joy. ‘Thet’s it,’ he cried. ‘Thet’s it! By time! ef ye ain’t cute. Thet’s jest what it is.’
‘But—but—I don’t understand,’ said Lucius, fingering the network. ‘Where did you get it?’
Ephraim gave himself another spin. ‘I done read her up out of a book, and made her myself,’ he said.
‘Grizzly!’ cried Lucius in profound admiration. ‘You—made—it—yourself. Well, if you don’t just beat every one. You’re a genius, that’s what you are. What put it into your head to make it? You clever old stick!’
‘You did,’ answered Ephraim, glowing with pride and pleasure.
‘_I_ did! Why? How? What is it for, then?’
Ephraim took a step forward and looked into his eyes. ‘_Fer you and me to sail around in and watch the war_,’ he said.
Profound silence followed this extraordinary announcement, and then Lucius sat down on a heap of shavings and rather feebly remarked, ‘Oh!’ There really seemed nothing more to be said.
‘Yas, sir,’ went on Ephraim, still beaming with satisfaction; ‘when ye said ye wuz so sot ter see some fightin’, I began ter study and figger out what’d be the best way for ye ter do it ’thout ye gettin’ in the track of the bullets.’