"My, but you do look just like a pictur of Kris Kringle!" laughed Phoebe. "Don't he, Rebecca?"
Rebecca came to the kitchen door wiping a dish with slow circular movements of her towel.
"I don't guess you'll freeze very much with all that on," she remarked.
"Thet shows you don't know what seventy or eighty below zero means," said a muffled voice from within the fur cap. "You'll hev suthin' hot, won't ye?" Droop continued, looking appealingly at Phoebe.
"The'll be a pot o' good hot tea," she said. "That'll warm you all right."
Droop thought of something more stimulating and fragrant, but said nothing as he returned to the cupboard. Here he drew forth an apparently endless piece of stout rope. This he wound in a thick coil and hung over his head.
"Now, then," he said, "when I get down you shet the door at the top of the stairs tight, coz jest's soon's I open the outside door, thet hall's goin' to freeze up solid."
"All right!" said Phoebe. "I'll see to it."
Droop descended the stairs with a heavy tread, and as he reached the foot Phoebe closed the upper door, which she now noticed was provided with weather-strips.
Then the two women stood at the windows on the right-hand side of the vessel and watched Droop as he walked toward the pole. He raised the huge iron ring, snapping over it a special coupling hook fixed to the end of the rope.
Then he backed toward the vessel, unrolling the coil of rope as he moved away from the pole. Evidently they were within the forty-foot limit from the pole, for Droop had some rope to spare when he at length reached under the machine to attach the end to a ring which the sisters could not see.
He emerged from beneath the bulging side of the vessel swinging his arms and blowing a mighty volume of steam, which turned to snow as it left him. As he made directly for the entrance again, Phoebe ran to the kitchen.
"Poor man, he'll be perished!" she exclaimed.
As Droop entered the room, bringing with him a bitter atmosphere, Phoebe appeared with a large cup of hot tea.
"Here, Mr. Droop," she said, "drink this quick!"
Copernicus pulled off his cap and sat down to drink his tea without a word. When he had finished it, he pulled back his chair with a sigh.
"Whillikins! But 'twas cold!" he exclaimed. "Seems mos' like heaven to get into a nice warm room like this!"