They looks, an' they runs, an' they yells, an' they vanishes, but they never speaks; d'ye see?
I told ye it was a sciencrific dolusion; though, I'm bound for to confess, I never heerd o' von o' them critters speakin', no more than the ghosts.

Howsomedever, that's wot it is." Corrie, who still hesitated, and held himself in readiness to bolt at a moment's notice, suddenly cried: "Why! I _do_ believe it's--No; it can't be--yes--I say, it's _Poopy_." "Wot's Poopy ?" inquired the seaman, in some anxiety.
"What! don't you know Poopy, Alice's black maid, who keeps her company, and looks after her; besides' doin' her and 'undoin' her (as she calls it), night and morning, and putting her to bed?
Hooray! Poopy, my lovely black darling; where _have_ you come from?
You've frightened Bumpus here nearly out of his wits.

I do believe he'd have bin dead by this time, but for me!" So saying, Corrie, in the revulsion of his suddenly relieved feelings, actually threw his arms round Poopy, and hugged her.
"O Corrie!" exclaimed the girl, submitting to the embrace with as much indifference as if she had been a lamp-post, "w'at troble you hab give me! Why you run so?
sure you know me voice." "Know it, my sweet lump of charcoal; I'd know it among a thousand, if ye'd only use it in its own pretty natural tones; but if you _will_ go and screech like a bottle-imp, you know," said Corrie, remonstratively, "how can you expect a stupid feller like me to recognize it ?" "There ain't no sich things as bottle-imps, no more nor ghosts," observed Bumpus; "but hold your noise, you chatterbox, and let's hear wot the gal's got to say.

Mayhap she knows summat about Alice ?" At this, Poopy manufactured an expression on her sable countenance which was meant to be intensely knowing and suggestive.
"Don't I?
Yes, me do," said she.
"Out with it, then, at once, you pot of shoe-blacking," cried the impatient Corrie.
The girl immediately related all that she knew regarding the fugitives, stammering very much from sheer anxiety to get it all out as fast as she could, and delaying her communication very much in consequence, besides rendering her meaning rather obscure--sometimes unintelligible.

Indeed, the worthy seaman could scarcely understand a word she said.