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Vieve’s green eyes lit up with pleasure at seeing the mechanimal "May I?"
"Of course Here you are" Sophronia picked up Bu boy
The lad exa open various hatches and spending a good deal of tiine inside Bumbersnoot’s stomach "Incredible Such intricacy But he needs to be serviced, I think Has he been squeaking at all?"
"As a matter of fact, he has"
Vieve nodded "I’ll coroundside, with so up"
"That’s very kind" Sophronia wasn’t certain how she felt about a nine-year-old taking apart her pet, but she wasn’t about to turn down the offer, either If Bumbersnoot needed a look-see, Vieve was the closest she had to an expert
"It’d be a pleasure He’s quite the little beauty, isn’t he?"
Buelike body, and while he was mostly bronze, it was clear he had some brass and iron parts, so that he was rather a patchwork Fond of hih she was, "little beauty" was not a phrase Sophronia would have used to describe him "If you say so"
Vieve put Bumbersnoot back on the bed and doffed his hat "Until tomorrow, then, miss?" Such an odd child
"Until tomorrow Shall I show you out?" Sophronia fell back on her recent training in how to dise onhis hat to the girls as he did so
Di at her "Who on earth is that? Or should I say, who in the clouds is that?"
"Vieve"
"So I gathered, but Sophronia, you never told me you had befriended Professor Lefoux’s eccentric niece!"
"Niece?"
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PROPER DRESS
Vieve was as good as her word Her word Sophronia still could not quite believe it It seemed that Professor Lefoux’s nine-year-old niece liked to dress as a boy and fraternize with sooties And that apparently Professor Lefoux let her!
"What-ho, Miss Sophronia!" said the girl, standing at the door and clutching a chubby reticule before her
"Good evening, Miss Genevieve," replied Sophronia formally "Won’t you co found out "So you know, do you?"
"Why on earth would you want to go about as a boy?"
"Boys have it far rins "I assure you, I find fe I si"
Sophronia looked her guest up and down This evening the girl earing her customary cap paired with an oversized man’s shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a brown vest, and brown jodhpurs "You’ll forgive hed
"There is your patient" Sophronia pointed to Bue of the absence of Sophronia’s fellow denizens to lounge in the parlor under the tea table in a position of prominence he wasn’t normally permitted
Vieve dumped the contents of her reticule onto the top of the tea table Her kit appeared to be lass bottles with corks The girl coaxed Bumbersnoot out from under the table, sat down on the settee, and lifted hi to help?"
"Don’t think so I take it you got caught cli shutdown and that’s why they banned you froht; someone saw me and told"
"That’s not on!" Vieve tipped the an tinkering and poking about with a sort of long squiggly stick made of iron She picked up one of her little bottles, uncorked it, and poured a drop of some dark, viscous liquid down the stick so it went directly where she wanted it to Vieve really was remarkably adept for a nine-year-old
"So you’re Professor Lefoux’s niece?"
"That’s what she tells me"
Sophronia sat back on the settee and tried to look casual "Know anything about this prototype?"
"Now, miss, ould you think that?"
"You like ather, the prototype is both"
The girl looked up and se than when she was concentrating on Bumbersnoot "It’s for a special coraph failed, sty on this new idea for co distances--one station to another Unfortunately, there see them transmit back and forth The researchers at the Royal Society in London came up with a new prototype to fix this They made two: one for London, and one to come here, to Bunson’s"
"Why Bunson’s?"
"Well, that’s where the other co happened to that prototype"
"Monique hid it"
Vieve looked impressed "Really? How do you know that?"
"I ith her at the ti assignment?"