you'll allow me, I never knowed any one like you, sir, for
goin' into details except one, and that one--"

"Ah, yes, I know, that was your friend the Scotch boy," said I,
interrupting; but Lancey was a privileged servant, and would not be
interrupted.

"Yes, sir," he resumed, "the Scotch boy Sandy. We was at school
together in Edinburgh, where I got the most o' my edication, and I never
did see such a boy, sir, for goin' into--"

"Yes, yes, Lancey, I know; but I haven't time to talk about him just
now. We are going to the bit of waste ground in the hollow; follow us
there."

I was obliged to cut him short, because this Scotch hero of his was a
subject on which he could not resist dilating on the slightest
encouragement.

Arrived at the waste ground, we met the manager of a neighbouring mine,
who was deeply learned in everything connected with blasting.

"I have brought my mother and sister, you see, Mr Jones," said I, as we
approached. "They don't quite believe in the giant-power which is under
your control; they seem to think that it is only a little stronger than
gunpowder."

"We can soon change their views on that point," said the manager, with a
slight bow to the ladies, while I introduced Nicholas as an officer of
the Russian army.

"This is one of the stones you wish to blast, is it not?" said Mr
Jones, laying his hand on an enormous boulder that weighed probably
several tons.

"It is," I answered.

The manager was a man of action--grave of countenance and of few words.
He drew a flask from his pocket and emptied its contents, a large
quantity of gunpowder, on the boulder. Asking us to stand a little
back, he applied a slow match to the heap, and retired several paces.

In a few seconds the powder went off with a violent puff and a vast
cloud of smoke. The result was a little shriek of alarm from my mother,
and an exclamation from Bella.

"Not much effect from that, you see," said the manager, pointing to the
blackened stone, yet it was a large quantity of powder, which, if fired
in a cavity inside the stone, would have blown it to pieces. "Here,
now, is a small quantity of dynamite." (He produced a cartridge about
two inches in length, similar to that which I had shown to my mother at
breakfast.) "Into this cartridge I shall insert a detonator cap, which
is fastened to the end of a Pickford fuse--thus."

As he spoke, he inserted into the cartridge the end of the fuse, to
which was attache