LEVER. Of course, if this level [pointing with his cigarette] peters out to the West we shall be in a tightish place; you know what a mine is at this stage, Colonel Hope.
COLONEL. [Absently.] Yes, yes. [Tracing a line.] What is there to prevent its running out here to the East?
LEVER. Well, nothing, except that as a matter of fact it doesn't.
COLONEL. [With some excitement.] I'm very glad you showed me these papers, very glad! I say that it's a most astonishing thing if the ore suddenly stops there. [A gleam of humour visits LEVER'S face.] I'm not an expert, but you ought to prove that ground to the East more thoroughly.
LEVER. [Quizzically.] Of course, sir, if you advise that——
COLONEL. If it were mine, I'd no more sit down under the belief that the ore stopped there than I 'd—-There's a harmony in these things.
NEVER. I can only tell you what our experts say.
COLONEL. Ah! Experts! No faith in them—never had! Miners, lawyers, theologians, cowardly lot—pays them to be cowardly. When they have n't their own axes to grind, they've got their theories; a theory's a dangerous thing. [He loses himself in contemplation of the papers.] Now my theory is, you 're in strata here of what we call the Triassic Age.
LEVER. [Smiling faintly.] Ah!
COLONEL. You've struck a fault, that's what's happened. The ore may be as much as thirty or forty yards out; but it 's there, depend on it.