"See!" cried she; "here is the machine your banker demands of you."
Picture to yourself a small closed bag, narrowing to a point at the end, and separated within into two very distinct compartments by a fleshy partition which went across the inside from the top to the bottom. Such was the object held up by the little girl. Prom each of these compartments issued a thick tube, ramifying into endless smaller ones; and they were moreover each surmounted by a sort of pouch, into which ran another tube, of the same description as the first. Each of these four portions (the two compartments and their pouches) was in constant but independent motion, distending and contracting alternately; and by carefully examining the noiseless play of this singular machine, (the walls of which were, by the magic power of the fairy, rendered transparent to the bystanders,) the learned assembly were very soon enabled to convince themselves, that it fulfilled all the monstrousconditions exacted of them by the fantastic millionaire.
All was in movement together, I told you; but let us begin at one end. The right-hand compartment and its pouch represented the first pump; the pump employed to draw, by the same stroke, the water from the stagnant channel, and that from the taps. It was perfectly easy to distinguish the two systems of pipes, and how they united together at the small pouch on their arrival. When this was distended, a vacuum was created inside, which was instantly filled by the liquid from the tube which ran into it, (do not ask me why or how; I will explain that presently). When it contracted again, the liquid which had just entered was not able to get back, being prevented from so doing by a very ingenious and simple contrivance, which requires a brief explanation.
Take off the lock from your chamber-door, which opens inside; then, standing outside, push against it with your shoulder, and you will get in without any difficulty. But when you are in, try to push the door open again with your shoulder in order to get outside into the passage, and you will find that you will not be able to pass through, and this simply because it does not open on that side.
Which was exactly what happened to the liquid in the pouch!
The door between the tube and the pouch only opened inwardly, and the liquid finding itself pressed on all sides in proportion as the pouch contracted more and more, and unable to return, was obliged at last to make its way through another similar door which led to the large compartment below. Here the same game recommenced. The compartment which had distended itself to receive it, contracted in its turn, and the liquid finding the road again barred behind it, had no choice but to force its way through the tube which led to the air-reservoir.
Here commenced the work of the second pump,—the pump of the left compartment. The little pouch, when distended, was filled by the liquid from the reservoir, and then forced it forward into the large compartment below, always by means of the same process. This compartment again drove it, by a powerful contraction, into the large conducting tube charged with the office of its general distribution throughout the body. At the end of all which, it returned once more into the right-hand pump as before, to pursue the same course again, &c., &c.
Thus, as you see, the whole mechanism turned upon two little points of detail, of the simplest description possible; namely, first, on the entrance-doors only opening on one side; and secondly, on the elastic covers of the pouches and compartments distending and contracting spontaneously. It was the prettiest thing in the world to see this unpretending-looking little bag working thus, quite naturally, without a suspicion that it was solving a problem which so many men, proud of their science, had given up as hopeless. Certainly here was a machine which made no noise! Once installed in its dark closet, it would have been necessary to place your hand upon it to find out that it moved at all. My lord could certainly sleep beside it without disturbance.
"How much do you want for it?" said they to the poor little beggar girl. "Name your price; have no fear; we will pay you anything you wish."
"I cannot give it to you," replied the child; "I need it too much myself: IT IS MY HEART. Now that you have seen it, make another like it, if you can." And she disappeared.