Not so her daughter, who, with Sally as guardian and dolly as ward, is awaiting the arrival of the party at the galvanic battery. She is yearning for the great event; not for a promised land of jerks and spasms for herself, but for her putative offspring. She encourages the latter, telling her not to be pitened and kye. Dolly doesn't seem apprehensive—shows great self-command, in fact.
But this detestable mother of a lovable daughter and an untempting granddaughter is destined to become still more detestable in the eyes of the Julius Bradshaws before she exhausts her topic. For as the party draws near to the scene of scientific recreation—and progress is slow, as she is deliberate as well as detestable; and, of course, is the pace-maker—she climbs up to a higher platform, as it were, for the contemplation of a lower deep. She assumes, for purposes of temporary handling of the subject, the air of one too far removed to know more about its details than the seismograph at Greenwich knows about the earthquake in the Andes. A dim contemplation of a thing afar—to be forgotten on the spot, after record made.
"Luckily, it's not so bad in this case as—(Gwenny, you're tiring Miss Nightingale. Come down!)—not so bad in this case as—(no, my dear! you must wait for dolly to be galvanised. Come down at once, and don't make conditions.)"
"But I love having her dearly—do let me keep her!" from Sally.
And from the human creature on her shoulders, "Miss Ninedale says 'No!'"
"Not so bad, you were saying, as...?" Thus Rosalind, to divert the conversation from the child.
"Oh dear! What was I saying? That child! What plagues the little things are!" The lady closes her eyes for two seconds behind a horizontal gloved hand, a seclusion to recollect in; then continues: "Oh yes, when it's a shopman. I dare say you've heard of that very painful case—daughter of a well-known Greek Pr...."
But the speaker has tact enough to see her mistake from the simultaneous loud speech it provokes. Every one seems to have something vociferous to say, and all speak at once. Sally's contribution
is a suggestion that before dolly is put to the torture we shall go into the downstairs place and see the gentleman who's fishing catch a big grey mullet. It is adopted. Rosalind only remains upstairs, and takes the opportunity to communicate the Julius Bradshaw epic to Gwenny's mamma, who will now be more careful than ever about the sort of people you pick up at the seaside and drop. She puts these words by in her mind, for Gwenny's papa, later on.
The gentleman who is to be seen catching the big grey mullet hadn't caught it, so far—not when the party arrived on the strange middle-deck of the pier the water reaches at high tide, and persuades occasional molluscs to grow on the floor of, with promises of a bath next month. The green reflected light from the endless rise and fall of the waves Gwenny could see (without getting down) through the floor-gaps, seemed to be urging the fisher-gentleman to give it up, and pointing out that the grey mullet was down here, and didn't mean to be caught. But he paid no attention, and only went on doing all the things that fishers do. He ascribed the fishes' reluctance to bite to the sort of sky, and not to common-sense on their part. He tried the other side instead. He lost his worm, and blamed him for going off the hook—which he would have done himself, and he knew it! He believed, honestly, that a fish of fabulous dimensions had thought seriously of biting, and would have bitten, only you got in the light, or made a noise.