There is no coal here.

What a fool I have been; I will give it up." But he never could do it.

A half hour of profound thinking always followed; and at the end of it he was sure to get up and straighten himself and say: "There is coal there; I will not give it up; and coal or no coal I will drive the tunnel clear through the hill; I will not surrender while I am alive." He never thought of asking Mr.Montague for more money.

He said there was now but one chance of finding coal against nine hundred and ninety nine that he would not find it, and so it would be wrong in him to make the request and foolish in Mr.Montague to grant it.
He had been working three shifts of men.

Finally, the settling of a weekly account exhausted his means.