“I'm talking about what you were talking about,” I replied; “as you put it so perfectly, about the handful of obstinate fellows who are standing between the country and the coal. I mean the men who are selling their own coal for fancy prices, and who, as long as they can get those prices, care as little for national starvation as most merchant princes and pirates have cared for the provinces that were wasted or the peoples that were enslaved just before their ships came home. But though I am a bit of a revolutionist myself, I cannot quite go with you in the extreme violence you suggest. You say--” “I say,” he cried, bursting through my speech with a really splendid energy like that of some noble beast, “I say I'd take all these blasted miners and--” I had risen slowly to my feet, for I was profoundly moved; and I stood staring at that mental monster. “Oh,” I said, “so it is the miners who are all to be sent to penal servitude, so that we may get more coal. It is the miners who are to be shot dead, every man Jack of them; for if once they are all shot dead they will start mining again...You must forgive me, sir; I know I seem somewhat moved. The fact is, I have just found something. Something I have been looking for for years.” “Well,” he asked, with no unfriendly stare, “and what have you found?” “No,” I answered, shaking my head sadly, “I do not think it would be quite kind to tell you what I have found.” He had a hundred virtues, including the capital virtue of good humour, and we had no difficulty in changing the subject and forgetting the disagreement. He talked about society, his town friends and his country sports, and I discovered in the course of it that he was a county magistrate, a Member of Parliament, and a director of several important companies. He was also that other thing, which I did not tell him.