"Oh, yes, I know," said Will, "and he isn't soldier nor thief; but he can do pretty well everything, from making a box, plastering and painting, to mending a lock or shoeing a horse. But such impudence! My father mad, indeed! I think it was a very wise thing for him to do, to buy that engine so cheaply. The old mill's nearly all wood. Suppose it were to catch fire?" "Bother!" said Josh. "Why hasn't it caught fire all these two hundred years since it was built?" "Because everybody's been so careful," said Will. "But it might catch fire any day." "Pigs might fly," said Josh. "Well, suppose it did. Haven't you got plenty of water to put it out?" "Yes, but how are you going to throw it up to the top? Why, with that engine hose and branch, now old Boil O's put the pump suckers right, you could throw the water all over the place a hundred feet, I daresay, in a regular shower. Ha, ha, ha! I say, Josh, what a game!" "What's a game?" "Shouldn't I like to have the old thing out, backed up to the dam, with some of the men ready to pump--a shower, you know." "Well, I suppose you mean something, but I don't understand." "A shower--umbrella." "Well, everybody puts up an umbrella in a shower." "Yah! What an old thick-head you are!--old Manners sitting under his umbrella, and we made it rain." Josh's face expanded very gradually into the broadest of grins, wrinkling up so much that it was at the expense of his eyes, which gradually closed until they were quite tightly shut. "Oh, no," he said at last. "It would be a game, but,"--he began to rub himself gently with both hands--"the very thought of it makes me feel as if my ribs were sore. He was such a weight." "Yes, we mustn't play any more tricks; he's such a good chap. But about old Boil O--I don't like his turning so queer. He went on at me like a madman--I felt half frightened--said all sorts of things." "What sort of things?" "Oh, that father imposed upon him because he was a poor man, and set him to do all kinds of dirty jobs about the place because he was willing. Said he'd repent it some day. When you know father picks out those jobs for him because he's such a clever old chap and does the things better than the clumsy workmen from the town. But as for imposing upon him," said the boy, proudly, "father would not impose upon anybody." "No, that he wouldn't. My father says he's the most noble-hearted, generous man he ever knew; he's always ready to put his hand in his pocket for the poor." "So he is," cried Will. "Impose! Why, do you know what he pays old Boil O every week?" "No." "Then I shan't tell you, because that's all private; but just twice as much as he pays any of the other men." "And he has that cottage rent-free, hasn't he?"