"Sometimes," said Dinass; "but I was working the pump all last night."

"Oh, then you're off work to-day?"

"That's so, young gentleman, and getting warm again in the sun. It was
precious cold down there in the night, and I got wet right through to my
backbone. I'm only just beginning to get a bit dried now."

"Look here, Ydoll," said Joe, sharply; "he'll have been talking to Sam
Hardock about it, I know. Here, Tom Dinass, what about that hobby
up-and-down thing Sam Hardock wants to have in the mine?"

"'Stead of ladders? Well, what about it?"

"It's all nonsense, isn't it?"

"Well, I shouldn't call it nonsense," said the man, thoughtfully, as he
took his pipe out of his mouth and sat thinking.

"What do you call it, then?" said Joe.

"Mellancolly, sir, that's what I call it--mellancolly."

"Because it won't work?" cried Joe.

"But it would work, wouldn't it?" said Gwyn.

"Oh, yes, sir, it would work," said the man, "because the engine would
pump it up and down."

"Of course it would," said Joe; "but what's the use of having a thing
that pumps up and down, unless it's to bring up water?"

"Ay, but this is a thing as pumps men up and down," said Dinass.

"Gammon! It's impossible."

Dinass looked at him in astonishment.

"No, it aren't," he said gruffly. "I've been pumped up and down one
times enough, so I ought to know."

"You have?" said Gwyn, eagerly.

"Ay, over Redruth way."

"There, then it is right," cried Gwyn. "I knew it was. What an old
jolly wet blanket you are, Joe!"

"But it can't be right," cried Joe, stubbornly. "Here you get on a bit
of a shelf and stand there and the beam goes down twenty feet."

"Nay, it don't," said Dinass, interrupting; "only twelve foot."

"Well it's all the same--it might be twenty feet, mightn't it?"

"I s'pose so, sir. Ones I've seen only goes twelve foot at a jog."

"Twelve feet, then; and then it jigs up again," cried Joe.

"Ay, just like a pump. Man-engines they call 'em," said Dinass; "but I
have heard 'em called farkuns."

[Note: _Fahr-Kunst_. First used in the Harz Mountain mines.]

"Then you've seen more than one?" cried Gwyn.

"More than one, sir! I should think I have!"

"And they do go well?"

"Oh, yes, sir, they go well enough after a fashion."

"Can't," cried Joe.

"But they do, sir," said Dinass. "I've seen 'em and gone down deep
mines on 'em."

"Now you didn't--you went down twelve feet," said Joe, more stubbornl