"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. The machinery will be imitated by other nations, but those nations can not create coal-fields. Should those ever be exhausted, our ingenuity will be imitated by larger nations, our territory will remain small, and we shall be a second-rate power; so I say that every man who reads and thinks about his own c—country ought to be able to say, 'I have been d—d—down a coal mine.'"
"Well," said the Colonel, loftily, "and can't you say you have been down a coal mine? I could say that and sit here. Well, sir, you have been reading the newspapers, and learning them off by heart as if they were the Epistle and Gospel; of course you must go down a coal mine; but if you do, have a little mercy on the fair, and go down by yourself. In the mean while, Walter, you can take your cousin and give her a walk in the woods, and show her the primroses."