Impressed with his words, and knowing besides now from long acquaintance that Jupp was what she called “a knowledgeable man,” Mary accordingly surrendered the apparently lifeless body of little Teddy; whereupon the porter incontinently began to strip off all the boy’s clothing, which of course was wringing wet like his own.
“Have you got such a thing as a dry piece of flannel now, miss?” he then asked Mary, hesitating somewhat to put his request into words, “like, like—”
“You mean a flannel petticoat,” said the girl promptly without the least embarrassment in the exigencies of the case. “Just turn your back, please, Mr Jupp, and I’ll take mine off and give it to you.”
No sooner was this said than it was done; when, Teddy’s little naked body being wrapped up warmly in the garment Mary had surrendered, and turned over on the right side, she began under Jupp’s directions to rub his limbs, while the other alternately raised and depressed the child’s arms, and thus exercising—a regular expansion and depression of his chest.
After about five minutes of this work a quantity of water that he had swallowed was brought up by the little fellow; and next, Mary could feel a slight pulsation of his heart.
“He’s coming round! he’s coming round!” she cried out joyously, causing little Cissy’s tears to cease flowing and Liz to join Mary in rubbing Teddy’s feet. “Go on, Mr Jupp, go on; and we’ll soon bring him to.”
“So we will,” echoed her fellow-worker heartily, redoubling his exertions to promote the circulation; and, in another minute a faint flush was observable in Teddy’s face, while his chest rose and fell with a rhythmical motion, showing that the lungs were now inflated again and in working order.
The little fellow had been brought back to life from the very gates of death!
“Hooray!” shouted Jupp when Teddy at length opened his eyes, staring wonderingly at those bending over him, and drawing away his foot from Liz as if she tickled him, whereat Mary burst into a fit of violent hysterical laughter, which terminated in that “good cry” customary with her sex when carried away by excess of emotion.
Then, all at once, Teddy appeared to recollect what had happened; for the look of bewilderment vanished from his eyes and he opened his mouth to speak in that quaint, formal way of his which Jupp said always reminded him of a judge on the bench when he was had up before the court once at Portsmouth for smuggling tobacco from a troopship when paid off!