the Doctor, as they walked on, "not an atom of the coal is really
destroyed; it can't be destroyed; it only changes form."
Going around to the front of the factory,
they entered a small door beside a large gate, passed through the
office, where the Doctor seemed to be acquainted, and thence through
rooms full of wonderful things, which Lawrence wished to stop at
once and examine. But his uncle said, "No; we shall come round
to these in due time. In visiting a place like this, if you really
wish to learn much about it, the way is to begin at the beginning.
Now let me see."
They entered the spacious rear yard of the
factory from one side, just as the coal train backed into it from
the other.
"Ah! there is the gaffer!" said the Doctor.
"Do you know what a gaffer is?"
"Laughter, one who laughs; quaffer, one who
quaffs; gaffer, one who-- gaffs, I guess," said Lawrence, smiling;
"though what gaffing is, I don't know more than the man in the moon."
"He sees us; we'll ask him," said the Doctor.
A short, solid-looking man, in an easy slouched
hat and a loose business-coat, who was giving a gang of men directions
about unloading the coal, left them, on seeing the Doctor, and came and
shook hands with him very cordially. Somehow the Doctor seemed to know
everybody.
"This is my nephew,"-- and Lawrence had the
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