“Posy here'd be a good hand aboard a lightship,” he observed. “Her talk'd NEVER run out.”
Primmie sniffed disgust. “I wish you wouldn't keep callin' me 'Posy' and such names, Zach Bloomer,” she snapped. “Yesterday he called me 'Old Bouquet,' Mr. Bangs. My name's Primrose and he knows it.”
The phlegmatic Zacheus, whose left leg had been crossed above his right, now reversed the crossing.
“A-ll right—er Pansy Blossom,” he drawled. “What is it you're trying to tell us you know? Heave it overboard.”
“Hey?... Oh, I mean I've remembered what 'twas I wanted to ask you, Mr. Bangs. Me and Zach was talkin' about Miss Martha. I said it seemed to me she had somethin' on her mind, was sort of worried and troubled about somethin', and Zach—”
For the first time the assistant light keeper seemed a trifle less composed.
“There, there, Primmie,” he began. “I wouldn't—”
“Be still, Zach Bloomer. You know you want to find out just as much as I do. Well, Zach, he cal'lated maybe 'twas money matters, cal'lated maybe she was in debt or somethin'.”
Mr. Bloomer's discomfiture was so intense as to cause him actually to uncross his legs.
“Godfreys, Prim!” he exclaimed. “Give you a shingle and a pocket-handkercher and you'll brag to all hands you've got a full-rigged ship. I never said Martha was in debt. I did say she acted worried to me and I was afraid it might be account of some money business. She was over to the light just now askin' for Cap'n Jeth, and he's the one her dad, Cap'n Jim Phipps, used to talk such things with. They went into a good many trades together, them too.... But there, 'tain't any of your affairs, is it, Mr. Bangs—and 'tain't any of Primmie's and my business, so we'd better shut up. Don't say nothin' to Martha about it, Mr. Bangs, if you'd just as soon. But course you wouldn't anyhow.”