“Why, garsh! plenty of people would want to buy them,” Swatty said. “I guess I ought to know. I guess I've got an uncle in Derlingport, ain't I? I guess he ought to know about pond-lily roots, oughtn't he?”
It looked like that ought to be so, because Derlingport is three times as big as Riverbank, and Swatty's uncle was older than any of us. But Bony said: “Aw! what does your old uncle know about pond-lily roots, anyway?”
“I guess he knows plenty about them,” Swatty said. “I guess if you went up to Derlingport to visit him you'd see whether he knows anything about them or not! I bet my uncle is the richest man in Derlingport, and the reason he is is because once, when I was out pond-lilying, I sent him a pond-lily root and he grew it in a tub, and when folks saw it they wanted to grow some too. So my uncle he rowred up the river to a pond-lily pond, and he got some roots and sold them. First orff he only got a few and sold them; but pretty soon he had a hundred men getting pond-lily roots for him, and he had to build a pond-lily root elevator, like the grain elevator down on the levee, but ten times bigger.”
“Gee-my-nentily!” Bony said. “Ten times bigger! Gee!”
“Ho! that ain't nothing!” Swatty said. “That was when he was just beginning to start out. He's got ten of them elevators now, and—he's got almost ten trillion-billion pond-lily roots in them. He's got a railway switch and a steamboat dock to each elevator, and when he ships pond-lily roots he ships them by the trainload. Only, when he sells them in Dubuque or Keorkuk, he ships them by the boatload.”
“Gee-my-nentily!” said Bony again. “Come on! Let's—”
“Well, I guess so!” said Swatty. “I guess it's no wonder he's the richest man in Derlingport! And I can just go and visit him any time I want to. I can go visit him and take a bath right in his china bathtub.”
“Aw! go on!” I said. “He ain't got a china bathtub!”
“Yes, sir! just like a tea-cup.”
“Gosh!” Bony said. “Did you take a bath in it?”