TWELVE
The dreary lives of the impecunious or of the miner.
Nicholas felt hot and sticky. Even though it was late afternoon, the sun still had a lot of heat left in it and the baked dry ground was throwing convected heat back into the oven-hot atmosphere.
He stopped to wipe his brow again and pull his sticky sweat-soaked shirt away from his back and armpits. He had grown too big for it and his perspiration made it chafe him even more under his arms and on his biceps. His feet felt tight-swollen and molten hot in his boots, but he daren't take them off; he knew he'd never get them back on again, because they were getting too small as well.
The events of the extraordinary English lesson kept coming back to him. He still couldn't really begin to believe it—the mere fact that he had not be
