Then he set in the middle of the table a heap of gunpowder, a little pile of black grains upon the white-scrubbed board.

He made and trimmed the straws while Paul and Annie rifled and plugged them.

Paul loved to see the black grains trickle down a crack in his palm into the mouth of the straw, peppering jollily downwards till the straw was full.

Then he bunged up the mouth with a bit of soap--which he got on his thumb-nail from a pat in a saucer--and the straw was finished.
"Look, dad!" he said.
"That's right, my beauty," replied Morel, who was peculiarly lavish of endearments to his second son.

Paul popped the fuse into the powder-tin, ready for the morning, when Morel would take it to the pit, and use it to fire a shot that would blast the coal down.
Meantime Arthur, still fond of his father, would lean on the arm of Morel's chair and say: "Tell us about down pit, daddy." This Morel loved to do.
"Well, there's one little 'oss--we call 'im Taffy," he would begin.