“Well, you are: let me see—Pisistratus.”
“Who was Pisistratus?”
“I don’t know,” said Bevis. “It doesn’t matter in the least. Now dig.”
Pisistratus dug till he came to another root, which Alexander the Great chopped off for him with the hatchet. Pisistratus dug again and uncovered a water-rat’s hole which went down aslant to the water. They both knelt on the grass, and peered down the round tunnel: at the bottom where the water was, some of the fallen petals of the may-bloom had come in and floated there.
“This would do splendidly to put some gunpowder in and blow up, like the miners do,” said Bevis. “And I believe that is the proper way to make a canal: it is how they make tunnels, I am sure.”
“Greeks are not very good,” said Mark. “I don’t like Greeks: don’t let’s be Greeks any longer. The Mississippi was very much best.”
“So it was,” said Bevis. “The Mississippi is the nicest. I am not Alexander, and you are not Pisistratus. This is the Mississippi.”
“Let us have another float down,” said Mark. “Let me float down, and I will drag you all the way up this time.”
“All right,” said Bevis.
So they launched the raft, and Mark got in and floated down, and Bevis walked on the bank, giving him directions how to pilot the vessel, which as before was brought up by the willow leaning over the water. Just as they were preparing to tow it back again, and Bevis was climbing out on the willow to get into the raft they heard a splashing down the brook.