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I never saw such an awkward people, with machinery;
you see, they were totally unused to it. The
miller-gun was a little double-barreled tube of toughened glass, with a neat little trick of a spring to it,
which upon pressure would let a shot escape. But the
shot wouldn't hurt anybody, it would only drop into
your hand. In the gun were two sizes -- wee mustard-seed
shot, and another sort that were several times
larger. They were money. The mustard-seed shot
represented milrays, the larger ones mills. So the
gun was a purse; and very handy, too; you could
pay out money in the dark with it, with accuracy; and
you could carry it in your mouth; or in your vest
pocket, if you had one. I made them of several sizes
-- one size so large that it would carry the equivalent
of a dollar. Using shot for money was a good thing
for the government; the metal cost nothing, and the
money couldn't be counterfeited, for I was the only
person in the kingdom who knew how to manage a
shot tower. "Paying the shot" soon came to be a
common phrase. Yes, and I knew it would still be
passing men's lips, away down in the nineteenth century,
yet none would suspect how and when it originated.
The king joined us, about this time, mightily refreshed
by his nap, and feeling good. Anything could
make me nervous now, I was so uneasy -- for our lives
were in danger; and so it worried me to detect a complacent something in the king's eye which seemed to
indicate that he had been loading himself up for a
performance of some kind or other; confound it, why
must he go and choose such a time as this?
I was right. He began, straight off, in the most
innocently artful, and transparent, and lubberly way,
to lead up to the subject of agriculture. The cold
sweat broke out all over me. I wanted to whisper in
his ear, "Man, we are in awful danger! every moment
is worth a principality till we get back these men's
confidence; DON'T waste any of this golden time."
But of course I couldn't do it. Whisper to him? It
would look as if we were conspiring. So I had to sit
there and look calm and pleasant while the king stood
over that dynamite mine and mooned along about his
damned onions and things. At first the tumult of my
own thoughts, summoned by the danger-signal and
swarming to the rescue from every quarter of my
skull, kept up such a hurrah and confusion and fifing
and drumming that I couldn't take in a word; but
presently when my mob of gathering plans began to
crystallize and fall into position and form line of battle,
a sort of order and quiet ensued and I caught the boom
of the king's batteries, as if out of remote distance:
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