"What if it took a week?" retorted the Unwiseman. "As long as they were willing to pay for it. But what's the use of talking about it? I haven't got a shovel, and I can't shovel the snow off an Alp with an air-gun, so that's the end of it."
And for the time being that was the end of it. The Unwiseman very properly confined himself to the quiet of the carpet-bag until his wrath had entirely disappeared, and after luncheon he turned up cheerily in the office of the hotel.
"Let's hire a couple of sleds and go coasting," he suggested to Mollie. "That Mount Blank looks like a pretty good hill. Whistlebinkie and I can pull you up to the top and it will be a fine slide coming back."
But inquiry at the office brought out the extraordinary fact that there were no sleds in the place and never had been.
"My goodness!" ejaculated the Unwiseman. "I never knew such people. I don't wonder these Switzers ain't a great nation like us Americans. I don't believe any American hotel-keeper would have as much snow as that in his back-yard all summer long and not have a regular sled company to accommodate guests who wanted to go coasting on it. If they had an Alp like that over at Atlantic City they'd build a fence around it, and charge ten cents to get inside, where you could hire a colored gentleman to haul you up to the top of the hill and guide you down again on the return slide."
"I guess they would," said Whistlebinkie.
"Then they'd turn part of it into an ice quarry," the Unwiseman went on, "and sell great huge chunks of ice to people all the year round and put the regular ice men out of business. I've half a mind to write home to my burgular and tell him here's a chance to earn an honest living as an iceman. He could get up a company to come here and buy up that hill and just regularly go in for ice-mining. There never was such a chance. If people can make money out of coal mines and gold mines and copper mines, I don't see why they can't do the same thing with ice mines. Why don't you speak to your Papa about it, Mollie? He'd make his everlasting fortune."
"I will," said Mollie, very much interested in the idea.
"And all that snow up there going to waste too," continued the Unwiseman growing enthusiastic over the prospect. "Just think of the millions of people who can't get cool in summer over home. Your father could sell snow to people in midsummer for six-fifty a ton, and they could shovel it into their furnaces and cool off their homes ten or twenty degrees all summer long. My goodness—talk about your billionaires—here's a chance for squillions."