I whispered it, so the manager would not hear.
"You must put this on. Take off your hat."
My hat came off, and the cap went on. It was pushed down well over my hair; down to my eyebrows in the front and down to the nape of my neck in the back.
"There!" said the captain, cheerfully. "You needn't be afraid of anything down in the mine now."
Alas! there was nothing in any mine, in any world, that I dreaded as I did what might be in that cap.
There were four of us, with the manager, and there was barely room on the rather dirty "lift" for us.
We stood very close together. It was as dark as a dungeon.
"Now—look out!" said the manager.
As we started, I clutched somebody—it did not matter whom. I also drew one wild and amazed breath; before I could possibly let go of that one—to say nothing of drawing another—there was a bump, and we were in a level one thousand and eighty feet below the surface of the earth.
We stepped out into a brilliantly lighted station, with a high, glittering quartz ceiling. The swift descent had so affected my hearing that I could not understand a word that was spoken for fully five minutes. None of my companions, however, complained of the same trouble.