or Kensington. There was only one class nowadays: moneyboys. The moneyboy
and the moneygirl, the only difference was how much you'd got, and how much
you wanted.
Under Mrs Bolton's influence, Clifford began to take a new interest in
the mines. He began to feel he belonged. A new sort of self-assertion came
into him. After all, he was the real boss in Tevershall, he was really the
pits. It was a new sense of power, something he had till now shrunk from
with dread.
Tevershall pits were running thin. There were only two collieries:
Tevershall itself, and New London. Tevershall had once been a famous mine,
and had made famous money. But its best days were over. New London was never
very rich, and in ordinary times just got along decently. But now times were
bad, and it was pits like New London that got left.
`There's a lot of Tevershall men left and gone to Stacks Gate and
Whiteover,' said Mrs Bolton. `You've not seen the new works at Stacks Gate,
opened after the war, have you, Sir Clifford? Oh, you must go one day,
they're something quite new: great big chemical works at the pit-head,
doesn't look a bit like a colliery. They say they get more money out of the
chemical by-products than out of the coal---I forget what it is. And the
grand new houses for the men, fair mansions! of course it's brought a lot of
riff-raff from all over the country. But a lot of Tevershall men got on
there, and doin' well, a lot better than our own men. They say Tevershall's
done, finished: only a question of a few more years, and it'll have to shut
down. And New London'll go first. My word, won't it be funny when there's no
Tevershall pit working. It's bad enough during a strike, but my word, if it
closes for good, it'll be like the end of the world. Even when I was a girl
it was the best pit in the country, and a man counted himself lucky if he
could on here. Oh, there's been some money made in Tevershall. And now the
men say it's a sinking ship, and it's time they all got out. Doesn't it
sound awful! But of course there's a lot as'll never go till they have to.
They don't like these new fangled mines, such a depth, and all machinery to
work them. Some of them simply dreads those iron men, as they call them,
those machines for hewing the coal, where men always did it before. And they
say it's wasteful as well. But what goes in waste is saved in wages, and a
lot more. It seems soon there'll be no use for men on the face of the earth,
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