Then she called out, as if she were crying fish or strawberries: "Mrs.Blaine!" The female keeper of the intelligence office, and the male keeper, and a thin clerk, and all the women in the back room, and all the patrons in the front room, jumped up and gathered around us.
Astonished and somewhat disconcerted, I rose to my feet and confronted the tall Irishwoman, and stood smiling in an uncertain sort of a way, as if it were all very funny; but I couldn't see the point.

I think I must have impressed the people with the idea that I wished I hadn't come.
"He says," exclaimed the woman, as if some other huckster were crying fish on the other side of the street--"he says he lives in a wash-toob." "He's crazy!" ejaculated Mrs.Blaine, with an air that indicated "policeman" as plainly as if she had put her thought into words.
A low murmur ran through the crowd of women, while the thin clerk edged toward the door.
I saw there was no time to lose.

I stepped back a little from the tall savage, who was breathing like a hot-air engine in front of me, and made my explanations to the company.

I told the tale of "Rudder Grange," and showed them how it was like to a stationary wash-tub--at certain stages of the tide.
I was listened to with great attention.

When I had finished, the tall woman turned around and faced the assemblage.
"An' he wants a cook to make soup! In a canal-boat!" said she, and off she marched into the back-room, followed closely by all the other women.
"I don't think we have any one here who would suit you," said Mrs.
Blaine.
I didn't think so either.