"Noa, not for coal. Aw have seen 'em boring."
"Then what the d—— l were they boring for?"
"They wur boring for compensation!"
That was sufficient. Jim had landed his salmon, and there was a shout of laughter in the Court as the discomfited counsel resumed his seat. Jim was troubled with no more questions. His last answer put the value of the land on its true basis. Humour is a wonderful lever in aiding the accomplishment of one's purpose. If Jim had bluntly expressed his opinion at the outset that this was a case of attempted imposition, the opinion would only have been taken for what it was worth, and the result might have been very different. The imperturbable way in which he led the learned counsel up to the climax, which, when reached, rendered further argument superfluous, was of the drollest.
The Lancashire man abroad does not lose his individuality. He is not great as a philosopher, and therefore has a wholesome contempt of foreigners. The world is not his parish as it might be if peopled by his own kith and kin. This insular prejudice against the foreigner on the part of our working men is exemplified by a circumstance which occurred in my own experience.
When I was engaged in certain engineering work in Brazil, I got out from Lancashire three skilled men to carry out a contract that I had in hand. They had been in that country a few weeks, when I asked one of them how he liked the place.
"Oh, tidy well," replied he, "it wouldn't be a bad place at all if there weren't so many d—— d foreigners about!"
Not for a moment recognising the fact that it was he who was the foreigner, and not the natives whom he affected to despise: a trait in our character which I fear is not confined to the lower classes, whether in Lancashire or elsewhere, in England.