“Oh, the engine on a boat,” Rosa said. “Hi is a lovely character, Carlotta. He would die for me or for you at a moment’s notice; but the engine on a boat is his mad streak. Of course it’s nice to have a mad streak; it shows the oldness of your family; but there it is.”
“Why should there not be an engine on a boat?” Carlotta asked. “What sort of little engine do you mean, Mr. Ridden?”
“Oh, call him Hi, Carlotta,” Rosa said. “This is his home here, remember; call him Hi.”
“I don’t know whether he will let me,” Carlotta said.
“I’ll be frightfully proud if you will,” Hi said, and blushed scarlet, and knew that Rosa watched the blush.
“What sort of engine . . . Hi?” Carlotta asked.
“Thank you,” he said, wondering whether he would ever be able to save her life and in reward be asked to call her Carlotta.
“You see,” he said, “Rosa is always ragging. She worked at this engine when she was in England. You see, we live in a part of England which is mostly rolling grass hills. We call them downs, but they are really a sort of ups. Well, we are a good long way from the Thames; too far to go for a day’s boating. Now I’m not much good at rowing, but I do love messing about in a boat. I mean, being in a boat.”
“I do, too,” Carlotta said; “there is a sort of lake at home. I go out in a boat to watch the flamingoes.”
“We’ve not got any lake, alas,” Hi said, “but there is a little sort of brook, or chalk-stream. It’s got plenty of water always, but it isn’t broad enough for oars. So what I’ve always wanted to do is to make a little engine to go in a boat. I don’t mean a steam-engine, but a hand engine, so that one could have the exercise of rowing. A man would sit on the thwart and turn a crank, or pull it to and fro, and that would turn a paddle-wheel; only I don’t want the paddle-wheel to be at the side, but either in front or let into the boat in a sort of well, so as not to take up room. They all say that it couldn’t go, but I say it must go.”