“I’ll tell you how it is,” he said, determined to be conscientious. “It’s like this—” He had to pause. Queer, how hard it was to state the thing coherently! “It’s like this. In the old days they used to make crocks anyhow, very rough, out of any old clay. And crocks were first made here because the people found common yellow clay, and the coal to burn it with, lying close together in the ground. You see how handy it was for them.”
“Then the old crocks were yellow?”
“More or less. Then people got more particular, you see, and when white clay was found somewhere else they had it brought here, because everybody was used to making crocks here, and they had all the works and the tools they wanted, and the coal too. Very important, the coal! Much easier to bring the clay to the people and the works, than cart off all the people—and their families, don’t forget—and so on, to the clay, and build fresh works into the bargain... That’s why. Now are you sure you see?”
George ignored the question. “I suppose they used up all the yellow clay there was here, long ago?”
“Not much!” said Edwin. “And they never will! You don’t know what a sagger is, I reckon?”
“What is a sagger?”
“Well, I can’t stop to tell you all that now. But I will some time. They make saggers out of the yellow clay.”
“Will you show me the yellow clay?”
“Yes, and some saggers too.”
“When?”