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them down a bank. He sent a huge boulder of chalk bursting among them,
and then ripped up a dozen yards of rail with a mighty plunge of his
foot. So he commenced the conscientious wrecking of the pit.
"
Work all my days," he said, "at this!"
It was an astonishing five minutes for the little geologist he had, in
his preoccupation, overlooked. This poor little creature having dodged
two boulders by a hairbreadth, got out by the westward corner and fled
athwart the hill, with flapping rucksack and twinkling knicker-bockered
legs, leaving a trail of Cretaceous echinoderms behind him; while young
Caddles, satisfied with the destruction he had achieved, came striding
out to fulfil his purpose in the world.
"
Work in that old pit, until I die and rot and stink!... What worm did
they think was living in my giant body? Dig chalk for God knows what
foolish purpose! Not I!"
The trend of road and railway perhaps, or mere chance it was, turned his
face to London, and thither he came striding; over the Downs and athwart
the meadows through the hot afternoon, to the infinite amazement of the
world. It signified nothing to him that torn posters in red and white
bearing various names flapped from every wall and barn; he knew nothing
of the electoral revolution that had flung Caterham, "Jack the
Giant-killer," into power. It signified nothing to him that every police
station along his route had what was known as Caterham's ukase upon its
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