Do you remember how formerly it was the custom to try to prevent explosions before our good genius, Humphry Davy, invented his safety-lamp ?" "Yes," replied James Starr.

"You mean what the 'monk,' as the men called him, used to do.

But I have never seen him in the exercise of his duty." "Indeed, Mr.Starr, you are too young, in spite of your five-and-fifty years, to have seen that.

But I, ten years older, often saw the last 'monk' working in the mine.

He was called so because he wore a long robe like a monk.