Colonel Clifford. “Well, why don’t you cut him out?”

Walter.  “They seem so happy without it.”

Colonel Clifford. “You are a muff.  I’ll do it for you.  Forward!”

Colonel Clifford then marched down and seated himself in the chair Hope had made for him.

Julia saw him, and whispered Percy:  “Ah! here’s Uncle Clifford.  He is going to marry me to Walter.  Never mind—­you are not jealous.”

Percy turned yellow.

“Well,” said Colonel Clifford to all whom it might concern, “this certainly is the most comfortable chair in England.  These fools of upholsterers never make the bottom of the chair long enough, but Mr. Hope has made this to run under a gentleman’s knees and support him.  He’s a clever fellow.  Julia, my dear, there’s a garden chair for you; come and sit down by me.”

Julia gave a sly look at Percy, and went to Colonel Clifford.  She kissed him on the forehead to soften the coming negative, and said:  “To tell you the truth, dear uncle, I have promised to go down a coal mine.  See!  I’m dressed accordingly.”

“Go down a coal mine!” said the Colonel, contemptuously.  “What fool put that idea in your head?”

Fitzroy strutted forward like a bantam-cock.  “I did, sir.  Coal is a very interesting product.”

“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.”