The beautiful candles of belief, that would not do to
light the world any more, they would still burn sweetly and
sufficiently in the inner room of his soul, and in the silence of his
retirement.
Gerald rushed into the reform of the firm, beginning with the office.
It was needful to economise severely, to make possible the great
alterations he must introduce.
'What are these widows' coals?' he asked.
'We have always allowed all widows of men who worked for the firm a
load of coals every three months.'
'They must pay cost price henceforward. The firm is not a charity
institution, as everybody seems to think.'
Widows, these stock figures of sentimental humanitarianism, he felt a
dislike at the thought of them. They were almost repulsive. Why were
they not immolated on the pyre of the husband, like the sati in India?
At any rate, let them pay the cost of their coals.
In a thousand ways he cut down the expenditure, in ways so fine as to
be hardly noticeable to the men. The miners must pay for the cartage of
their coals, heavy cartage too; they must pay for their tools, for the
sharpening, for the care of lamps, for the many trifling things that
made the bill of charges against every man mount up to a shilling or so
in the week.
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