"What is the night?" said the governor.
"Och, and have ye lived to be a gray-haired man and don't know that it's dark at noight whin the sun jumps round to the other soide of the wurrld?"
"But it's never dark here," said the governor.
"Thrue for you, but it ought to be. How can a Christian slape wid the sun shinin' all the toime?" rejoined the Irishman.
"Oh, you can sleep here in the sunshine," said the governor, "as well as inside the house."
"Does it iver rain here?" said Flathootly.
"But little," replied the governor; "not more than six inches of rain falls in a year."
"Bedad, you ought to be in Oireland to see it rain. There you'd git soaked to your heart's content. An' tell me how do you grow your cabbages without rain?" he continued.
"Well," said the governor, "rain is produced by firing into the air balls of solid gas so intensely cold that in turning to the gaseous form they condense in rain the invisible vapor in the air."
"Bedad, that's what they do in our country," said Flathootly, "only they explode shells of dynamite in the air. Can you tell me," he added, "have you got tides in the say here?"