"The windows can't be opened, Cousin Rebecca," he said. "Ef ye was to open one, 'twould blow yer head's bald as an egg in a minute."
"What!"
"Yes," said Phœbe, briskly, "I couldn't air the beds an' make 'em because we're going one hundred and thirty odd miles an hour, Rebecca."
"D'you mean to tell me, Copernicus Droop," cried the outraged spinster, "that I've got to go 'thout airin' my bed?"
"No, no," Copernicus said, soothingly. "The's special arrangements to keep ventilation goin'. Jest leave the bed open half the day an' it'll be all aired."
Rebecca looked far from pleased at this.
"I declare, ef I'd known of all these doin's," she muttered.
Unable to remain idle, she set to work "putting things to rights," as she called it, while Phœbe took her book to the west window and was soon lost in certain modern theories concerning the Baconian authorship of Shakespeare's works.
"Is these duds yourn, Mr. Droop?" asked Rebecca, sharply, pointing to a motley collection of goods piled in one corner of the main room.
"Yes," Droop replied, coming quickly to her side. "Them's some of the inventions I'm carryin' along."