“Say not so!” exclaimed a blazing lump of coal; “even a humble peat is not to be despised. How often have you not brought joy and gladness to the poor man’s fireside, caused the porridge-pot to boil and the bairns to laugh with glee, banished the cold of winter, and infused comfort and warmth into the limbs of the aged. But you are modest, and modesty is ever the companion of genuine merit.”
“And you, sir,” said the peat to the coal, “you are very, very great and very, very old—are you not?”
“I am very, very old, and I am no doubt very, very powerful. Yet my powers are gifts of the great Creator, and it is mine to distribute them to toiling and deserving man. Ages and ages ago before this ancient pine log was thought of or dreamt of, before mankind even dwelt on these islands, when its woods were the home of the wildest of beasts, when gigantic woolly elephants with curling tusks roamed free in its forests, and its marshes and lakes swarmed with loathsome saurians, I dwelt on earth’s surface. But changes came with time, and for thousands of years I was dead and buried in the earth’s black depths. The ingenuity of man has resuscitated me, and now I have gladly become his servant and slave. I warm the castle, the palace, and the humble cot. I give light as well as heat; I am swifter than the eagle in my flight. I am more powerful than the wind; I drag man’s chariots across the land, I waft his ships to every clime and every sea. I move the mightiest machinery; I am gentle in peace and dreadful in war.
“Nay more, the great wizard Science has but to lift his wand, and lo! I yield up products more wonderful than any yet on earth. Gorgeous were the colours that adorned the flowers of the land in ages long gone by, delicate and delightful were their perfumes; but these perfumes and these colours I have carefully stored, and give them now to man.”
What more Tommy would have overheard, as he sat there at his sister’s knee, it is impossible to say, for the boy had fallen asleep.
CHAPTER II.
“IT WAS ON JUST SUCH A NIGHT AS THIS, SISTER.”
“NO,” repeated Tommy’s father as he proceeded to refill his pipe; “we mustn’t expect to make much of Tommy.”
“Tommy may be president of America yet,” said Uncle Robert, looking quietly up from his paper. “Stranger things have happened, brother; much stranger.”
“Pigs might fly,” said Tommy’s father, somewhat unfeelingly. “Stranger things have happened, brother; much stranger.”
Tommy’s brothers laughed aloud.