"
"Vulgar!" said the Cat. "But I am sure he never lost his dignity."
"We don't know. He looked like the Ace of Diamonds when we had finished
with him.... Move on there! Keep on moving. Over! Get over!"
"And why on this day more than any other," said the Wheel statelily. "I am
not aware that my department requires the stimulus of external pressure to
keep it up to its duties. I trust I have the elementary instincts of a
gentleman."
"Maybe," the Waters answered together, leaping down on the buckets. "We
only know that you are very stiff on your bearings. Over, get over!"
The Wheel creaked and groaned. There was certainly greater pressure upon
him that he had ever felt, and his revolutions had increased from six and
three-quarters to eight and a third per minute. But the uproar between the
narrow, weed-hung walls annoyed the Grey Cat.
"Isn't it almost time," she said plaintively, "that the person who is paid
to understand these things shuts off those vehement drippings with that
screw-thing on the top of that box-thing."
"They'll be shut off at eight o'clock as usual," said Rat; "then we can go
to dinner."
"But we shan't be shut off till ever so late," said the Waters gaily. "We
shall keep it up all night."
"The ineradicable offensiveness of youth is partially compensated for by
its eternal hopefulness," said the Cat. "Our dam is not, I am glad to say,
designed to furnish water for more than four hours at a time.
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