“All that I have to say,” said my uncle, firmly, “is that we are bound to Quash Island.”
“Mercy, uncle! if I had known of this great long pull of ten mortal miles in this fiery sun, you wouldn’t have juggled me into the skiff so easy. What’s in that box?—paving-stones? See how the skiff settles down under it. I won’t help pull a box of paving-stones ten miles. What’s the use of pulling ’em?”
“Look you, simpleton,” quoth my uncle, pausing upon his suspended oar. “Stop rowing, will ye! Now then, if you don’t want to share in the glory of my experiment; if you are wholly indifferent to halving its immortal renown; I say, sir, if you care not to be present at the first trial of my Great Hydraulic-Hydrostatic Apparatus for draining swamps and marshes, and converting them, at the rate of one acre the hour, into fields more fertile than those of the Genesee; if you care not, I repeat, to have this proud thing to tell—in far future days, when poor old I shall have been long dead and gone, boy—to your children and your children’s children; in that case, sir, you are free to land forthwith.”
“Oh, uncle! I did not mean—”
“No words, sir! Yorpy, take his oar, and help pull him ashore.”
“But, my dear uncle; I declare to you that—”
“Not a syllable, sir; you have cast open scorn upon the Great Hydraulic-Hydrostatic Apparatus. Yorpy, put him ashore, Yorpy. It’s shallow here again. Jump out, Yorpy, and wade with him ashore.”
“Now, my dear, good, kind uncle, do but pardon me this one time, and I will say nothing about the apparatus.”
“Say nothing about it! when it is my express end and aim it shall be famous! Put him ashore, Yorpy.”
“Nay, uncle, I will not give up my oar. I have an oar in this matter, and I mean to keep it. You shall not cheat me out my share of your glory.”