“'Mr. Sickleton remarks, your Majesty, that he will need assistance to exhibit his invention—that he requires some one to work the pump.'
“'Then why did n't he bring hands with him?' said the king, testily. 'I suppose the machine is not self-acting, and that he knew that before he came here.'
“I thought I 'd have fainted at this rebuke from the lips of royalty itself, and so I stammered out some miserable excuse about not knowing if I were empowered to have brought aid—my ignorance of court etiquette—in fact, I blundered—and so far, that the king cut me short by saying, 'Take those people there, sir, and don't delay us;' pointing to the two gentlemen in cocked hats, bags, and swords, that looked as if they could have danced on my grave with delight.
“In a flurry—compared to which a fever was composure—I instructed my two new assistants in the duty, and stationing myself with the hose to direct the operation of the jet, I gave the word to begin. Well! instead of a great dash of water spurting out some fifty feet in height, and fizzing through the air like a rocket, there came a trickling, miserable dribble, that puddled at my very feet! I thought the sucker was clogged—the piston stopped—the valves impeded—twenty things did I fancy—but the sober truth was, these gilded rascals would n't do more than touch the crank with the tips of their fingers, and barely put sufficient force in the pressure to move the arm up and down. 'Work it harder—put more strength to it,' I whispered, in mortal fear to be overheard, but they never minded me in the least Indeed, I almost think one fellow winked his eye ironically when I addressed him.
“'Eh—what!' said the king, after ten minutes of an exhibition that were to me ten years at the galleys, 'these pumps do next to nothing. They make noise enough, but don't bring up any water at all.'
“The First Lord shook his head in assent. Old Beaufort made me a sign to give up the trial, and the post-captain blurted out, in a half-whisper, something about a 'blundering son of a dog's wife' that nearly drove me mad.
“'I say, Sickleton,' said the king, 'your invention's not worth the solder it cost you. You couldn't sprinkle the geraniums yonder in three weeks with it.'
“'It's all the fault of these d——d buffers, please your Majesty,' said I, driven clean out of my senses by failure and disgrace—and, to be sure, as hearty a roar of laughter followed as ever I listened to in my life—'if they 'd only bear a hand and work the crank as I showed them—' As I spoke, I leaned over and took hold of the crank myself, letting the hose rest on my shoulder.
“With two vigorous pulls I filled the pistons full, and, at the third, rush went the stream with the force of a Congrève—not, indeed, over the trees, as I expected, but full in the face of the First Lord; scarcely was his cry uttered, when a fourth dash laid him full upon his back, drenched from head to foot, and nearly senseless from the shock. The king screamed with laughing—the admiral shouted—the old post-captain swore—and I, not knowing one word of all that was happening behind my back, worked away for the bare life, till the two footmen, at a signal from the admiral, laid hold of me by main force, and dragged me away, the perspiration dripping from my forehead, and my uniform all in rags by the exertion.