At any rate, they didn't give it to us.

We paid that old man twenty cents, for we drank two glasses apiece.

And first we had knocked at the farm door, and told our need to a pretty young woman, who answered, with some hesitancy, that she would call "father." She seemed to live in some awe of "father," as we well understood when a tall, raw-boned, stern, old man, of the caricature "Brother Jonathan" type, appeared grimly, making an iron sound with a great bunch of keys.

On hearing our request, he said nothing, but, motioning to us to follow, stalked across the farmyard to a small building under a great elm-tree.
There were two steps down to the door, and it had a mysterious appearance.

It might have been a family vault, a dynamite magazine, or the Well at the World's End.