"I did not know that you were particular about that!"
"Yes, you did know it, but surely you would be alone with your dark thoughts!"
"Perhaps!"
"Certainly! Don't you think that I have observed it? Don't you believe that I have seen how you are becoming tired of me?"
"Have I proved tired of you, I who follow you day in and day out, though on a morning, when you usually are asleep, I took the liberty to sail for a couple of hours? But maybe you have become tired of learning to fish, for I have not seen you once out at sea."
"It is not the time to fish now as you well know," answered Miss Mary fully persuaded that she spoke the truth.
"No, I see that!" interposed the commissioner with the purpose of approaching the very mine, with the risk of an explosion. "I see how the people abandon their work to listen to sermons...."
Now an eruption was ready.
"Was it not you, who wished to have a church out here?"
"Yes, Sundays. Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh go to church. Here no work is done any day, but there is preaching every day. And instead of making themselves and families an honest income here on this earth, they all race after such an uncertain thing as heaven. The very laborers on the chapel have left their work, so that we shall never see a roof on that church, and I expect every moment to hear that poverty has broken out, so that we must be prepared for charity...."