“Oh, all sorts.”
“White as a lily? You are sure ’twas she?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what besides?”
“Great glass windows to the shops, and great clouds in the sky, full of rain, and old wooden trees in the country round.”
“You stun-poll! What will ye say next?” said Coggan.
“Let en alone,” interposed Joseph Poorgrass. “The boy’s meaning is that the sky and the earth in the kingdom of Bath is not altogether different from ours here. ’Tis for our good to gain knowledge of strange cities, and as such the boy’s words should be suffered, so to speak it.”
“And the people of Bath,” continued Cain, “never need to light their fires except as a luxury, for the water springs up out of the earth ready boiled for use.”
“’Tis true as the light,” testified Matthew Moon. “I’ve heard other navigators say the same thing.”
“They drink nothing else there,” said Cain, “and seem to enjoy it, to see how they swaller it down.”