“Look here, Sammy,” she exclaimed; “I want you, or somebody who knows more than you do, to tell me how the people on this vessel are goin' to get air to breathe with. It has just struck me that when we have breathed up all the air that's inside, we will simply suffocate, just as if we were drowned outside a boat instead of inside; and for my part I can't see any difference, except in one case we keep dry and in the other we are wet.” “More than that, madam,” said Mr. Gibbs, the Master Electrician, who, in fact, occupied the rank of first officer of the vessel; “if we are drowned outside in the open water we shall be food for fishes, whereas if we suffocate inside the vessel we shall only be food for reflection, if anybody ever finds us.” “You did not come out expectin' that, I hope?” said Mrs. Block. “I thought something would happen when we started, but I never supposed we would run short of air.” “Don't bother yourself about that, Sarah,” said Sammy. “We'll have all the air we want; of course we would not start without thinkin' of that.” “I don't know,” said Sarah. “It's very seldom that men start off anywhere without forgettin' somethin'.” “Let us take our seats, Mrs. Block,” said Mr. Gibbs, “and I will set your mind at rest on the air point. There are a great many machines and mechanical arrangements on board here which of course you don't understand, but which I shall take great pleasure in explaining to you whenever you want to learn something about them. Among them are two great metal contrivances, outside the Dipsey and near her bows, which open into the water, and also communicate with the inside of her hull. These are called electric gills, and they separate air from the water around us in a manner somewhat resembling the way in which a fish's gills act. They continually send in air enough to supply us not only with all we need for breathing, but with enough to raise us to the surface of the water whenever we choose to produce it in sufficient quantities.” “I am glad to hear it,” said Mrs. Block, “and I hope the machines will never get out of order. But I should think that sort of air, made fresh from the water, would be very damp. It's very different from the air we are used to, which is warmed by the sun and properly aired.” “Aired air seems funny to me,” remarked Sammy. There was fascination, not at all surprising, about the great glass lights in the Dipsey, and whenever a man was off duty he was pretty sure to be at one of these windows if he could get there. At first Mrs. Block was afraid to look out of any of them. It made her blood creep, she said, to stare out into all that solemn water. For the first two days, when she could get no one to talk to her, she passed most of her time sitting in the cabin, holding in one of her hands a dustbrush, and in the other a farmer's almanac. She did not use the brush, nor did she read the almanac, but they reminded her of home and the world which was real.