She kissed
him on the forehead to soften the coming negative, and said: "To tell you
the truth, dear uncle, I have promised to go down a coal mine. See! I'm
dressed accordingly."
"Go down a coal mine!" said the Colonel, contemptuously. "What fool put
that idea in your head?"
Fitzroy strutted forward like a bantam-cock. "I did, sir. Coal is a very
interesting product."
"Ay, to a cook."
"To every English g-gentleman."
"I disown that imputation for one."
"Of being an English g-gentleman?"
There was a general titter at this sly hit.
"No, sir," said the Colonel, angrily--"of taking an interest in coal."
"Well, but," said Percy, with a few slight hesitations, "not to t-take an
interest in c-coal is not to take an interest in the n-nation, for this
n-nation is g-great, not by its p-powerful fleet, nor its little b-b-bit
of an army--"
A snort from the Colonel.
"--nor its raw m-militia, but by its m-m-manufactures; these depend on
machines that are driven by steam-power, and the steam-engines are
coal-fed, and were made in coal-fed furnaces; our machines do the work of
five hundred million hands, and you see coal keeps them going.
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