“Because everybody’s been so careful,” said Will. “But it might catch fire any day.”
“Pigs might fly,” said Josh. “Well, suppose it did. Haven’t you got plenty of water to put it out?”
“Yes, but how are you going to throw it up to the top? Why, with that engine hose and branch, now old Boil O’s put the pump suckers right, you could throw the water all over the place a hundred feet, I daresay, in a regular shower. Ha, ha, ha! I say, Josh, what a game!”
“What’s a game?”
“Shouldn’t I like to have the old thing out, backed up to the dam, with some of the men ready to pump—a shower, you know.”
“Well, I suppose you mean something, but I don’t understand.”
“A shower—umbrella.”
“Well, everybody puts up an umbrella in a shower.”
“Yah! What an old thick-head you are!—old Manners sitting under his umbrella, and we made it rain.”
Josh’s face expanded very gradually into the broadest of grins, wrinkling up so much that it was at the expense of his eyes, which gradually closed until they were quite tightly shut.