Miss Adèle took out some knitting, and placing the chair exactly opposite the acting boatswain's cabin, worked away like a machine, much to the admiration of a group of marines, who were watching her proceedings with the greatest attention. The bonne did not lack admirers, as she well knew; but the man she almost worshipped, "the charming Monsieur Thompesonne," was unkind to her.
Finding she meant to blockade him, Jerry turned his attention to cleaning the animals, when the quick eye of the French girl discovered the monkey, and she determined to thaw her cold idol by threatening him with exposing the child's secret; so she started, and exclaimed with an affected little scream, "Oh, Monsieur Thompe-sonne! vare deed you get zat monquai?"
"It's mine, miss; I've had it a long time," he coolly replied.
Adèle got up, walked to the cabin door, surveyed the animal with a slightly contemptuous air, and observed, "Zat is Meece Barbe's monquai."
"Oh no, it ain't; it ain't the little gal's; it's mine."
"Oh no. Monsieur, I know zat monquai; it my fingare bited too many times. Her papa zay it vas to be kill, but one leetle niggare boy he zave it, and now meece hide it here—I must tell her papa of it."
"For goodness' sake, don't do that!" whispered the fellow, quite forgetting in his anxiety to shield his favourite from trouble, that probably her papa only deprived his child of her plaything because he thought it could not be accommodated on board. "Oh, please don't tell on the pretty baby."
Adèle walked into the cabin, gazed almost fiercely in his face, and exclaimed, "Vy should I hold my tongue? you do not care for me. Vy should I do so for zo meece?"
"Phew!" whistled Jerry, seeing in a moment what the girl meant. "Why, my dear may-dam-mosselle, I'll do anything to please you, if you won't split about the monkey."
"I do not vant to spleet ze monquai—mais I vant ze leetle politeness from yourself, Monsieur Thompe-sonne. Do you like me? No! Ees it zat I am zo uglee donc!"