Thunder and Roses (61 page)

The leather cue tip was invented by a French infantry captain called
Mingaud
, somewhere between 1807 and 1820. He was in jail at the time, which gave him plenty of time to practice. In fact, when his sentence was up, he asked to stay in the slammer for another month while he practiced his technique. Permission was granted. (Some people will do anything for a free table.) On his release, he promptly turned professional and became the world’s first exhibition billiard player, amazing everyone with his skill.

At the time Thunder and Roses is set, the British coal industry was on the brink of the great expansion that created the famous Welsh mining communities. In 1815, the Davy safety lamp was invented; it protected miners from the explosive effects of firedamp, which was a mixture of air and methane. The Methodist societies, with their spiritual passion and concern for segments of society neglected by the established church, were a powerful moral influence among the miners.

The oddest bits of mining lore in the book are the ones that really happened: blind miners, wire silver, and the miner who sacrificed himself because he knew that he would go to heaven, but he was worried about the soul of his colleague. (It happened in Cornwall, and the miner miraculously lived to explain why.)

I’d like to give special t
hank
s to Carol Hanlon and Dean
Stucker
, geologist and mining engineer respectively, for helping me with mining sequences.

As for the penguins—well, why not?

THE END