"No use," pronounced Mr. Swiggs at the close, shaking his head ponderously.
"Why not?"
Mr. Swiggs swept his hand before him, summing up the whole landscape with one majestic semicircle.
"Where is your soil?" he asked. "And where is your water? Springs?"—he paused a couple of seconds—"There ain't none. All that mortal man can do, I does."
"And what is that?"
"I does without."
"But the marsh behind us—"
"Salt."
"Narcissus Swiggs, you have been in my service twenty years."
"Twenty-three."