‘There’s a gennelman,’ said the head coalheaver, ‘as don’t ought to be wronged out of the vally of _that_!’ the amount in question being a pinch of coal-dust which the speaker took up from one side of the waggon, and sprinkled in the air. ‘He allus gives a ticket for beer,’ said the second coalheaver, ‘but last time the apples warn’t ripe.’ ‘He counted the _sacks_ nation sharp, howsever,’ pursued the carman with a very knowing look. At this both the coalheavers laughed loudly. ‘Ah!’ said the second coalheaver; ‘people think that makes all sure. They don’t think of the ease of bringing an empty sack with us, after dropping a full one by the way. Not they. Nobody yet was ever wise enough to count the full sacks when they first come.’ On hearing this, the carman’s face presented a confounded and perplexed look of irritated stupidity, marked in such very hard lines, that the coalheavers laughed for the next five minutes with the recollection of it. Towards dusk the waggon returned to the wharf, and next day Flashley resumed his usual duties. One morning, after several hours’ work with the sieve in ‘screening,’ when his face and hands were, if possible, more hopelessly black than they had ever been before, Flashley was called to take a note to a merchant at the Coal Exchange. This merchant’s name seemed rather an unusual one to meet with in England—being no less a person than Haji Ali Camaralzaman and Co. The merchant was a short, solid-built figure, and stood with a heavy immobility that gave the effect of a metallic image rather than a man. He was a Moor, though nearly black, and with very sparkling eyes. He was dressed in a long dark blouse, open at the breast, and displaying a black satin waistcoat, embroidered with golden sprigs and tendrils. It seemed to Flashley that he spoke a foreign language; and yet he understood him, though without having any idea what language it was. Something passed between them in a very earnest tone, almost a whisper, about Sinbad the Sailor, and a sort of confused discussion as to the geographical position of the Valley of Black Diamonds; also, if coals were ever burnt in the east; then a confused voice from within the hall called out loudly, ‘The North Star!’ to which a chorus of coal-merchants responded in a low chant, ‘What money does he owe the divan?’ ‘Yes,’ said the great Camaralzaman, ‘and what lost time does he owe to nature and to knowledge? Let the North Star look to it.’ ‘It does, great Sir!’ responded the chorus of coal-merchants, in the same low chant. ‘It shines directly over the shaft of the William Pitt mine.’ ‘Enough,’ said Camaralzaman. At this all the merchants fell softly into a heap of white ashes.