inveighing to your travelling companion against
the infamy of a railway company starting a
train "three minutes and a half late, sir," just
as I hear you inveighing daily against the
shameful conduct of the ministry, or the
hideous incapacity of foreign statesmen. Your
innocence tickles me as I sit here and know
that the three minutes you complain of has
saved your life. A wrong turn of this
handle, Jawby, a momentary forgetfulness of
the meaning of the red "diss," and you
and your belongings would have been scattered
broadcast to prose and grumble and
improve the world (in words) no more. It is
curious, as this truth gains shape and force,
to look from the Hole at the ever-changing
stage at its feet. Trains succeed each other
with strange rapidity—"a little extra traffic
to-day, you know, sir, bein' Saturday and the
Crystal Palace"—and as each compartment
gives you a compact section of human life, with
its hopes, fears, pleasures, and cares, you come
to regard Waller's potentiality for good or evil
as something unnatural. Suppose he were to
go suddenly mad? Suppose the many irons
entered into his soul, and he vowed hostility to
his race? Suppose he had intermittent bouts
of absence of mind? Suppose he had a fit?
Suppose he became muddled by the constant
succession of whistles, bangs, and shrieks which
have had such a pitiable effect on you?—and
to all these questions he makes unconscious
answer in his brisk alertness and ever-watchful
eye. The stage-box simile gains force from the
demeanour of some of the people in the trains.
As your first tremors wear off, and you become
more hardened to the maniacal working of the
practicable harrow in your front, you regard
the carriages more closely and with some
curious optical effects. Nothing like full speed
is attained by the time the Hole is gained, and
as the various passengers flit past, they seem
like the phantasmagoria of a magic lantern
when the slides follow each other rapidly, but
not without each figure being firmly impressed
upon the retina. Thus, the billing and cooing
of a young man in a white waistcoat and blue
spangled necktie with a rosy damsel in a buff
muslin suit was very apparent. The red hand
of the young man against the dull yellow of his
beloved's waist was a study for an artist of the
pre-Raphaelite school, who might have done
wonders with the black circlet on the fingernails
and the amorously wooden expression of
the twain. There were some fine studies,
too, of babies' heads in the act of taking the
oldest form of nutriment, while, without
reckoning Jawby, there were some "old men
eloquent," who would have looked marvellously
well on signboards. It seemed a new view of
one's fellow-creatures to see them as animated
half-lengths, and, as shoal after shoal flitted by,
the ease with which they might be immolated
recurred again and again with terrible suggestiveness.
One felt to look down upon them
figuratively as well as literally, when the
touch of one of the instruments" at our hand
could consign them to immediate destruction;
and, dreadful as the confession may seem,
the speculation as to which of them would
suffer most, and how easily they could be all
brought to nought, gained deeper and deeper
hold as the trains rolled out. I cannot analyse,
and, of course, do not attempt to justify this
feeling. It is humiliating enough to acknowledge
it, but it is certain that a morbid and an
increasing longing to try the experiment of
turning a wrong handle and bringing two full
trains into collision was the first warning
given me of the strain on the nerves produced
by the noises and signals described. Puppets in
toy-boxes, some well-bedecked, pretty, and
glossy, others seamed, shabby, and worn by much
use, all playthings of the hour; such was the
impression conveyed by the well-laden trains and
their cargoes as they rushed madly out and in, in
obedience to the hidden springs we touched.

"I didn't let this Chatham and Dover in
afore, sir, which it signalled twice, because if I
had it would ha' cut them Crystal Palaces in
two," was honest Waller's comment, as one
train went slowly by, the guard of which
nodded to us as to old acquaintance.
"What's coming now?" called a porter from
below, who broke through the rule otherwise
observed during our stay, of signalling without
speech.

"Only Empties."

"Blessed if it ain't Jack Reece, with the
carriages as went down to the Palace this
morning."

And Mr. Reece, an engine-driver of scorbutic
habit, and with an inflamed nose, was
permitted to pass slowly in with his convoy.
The locomotives of the different companies
grew upon us like old friends, as their distinctive
marks were mastered and they were
introduced by Waller. The situation of what
he continued to call their "diss" determined
their ownership. A plain white circle on the
chimney or boiler, or a white circle picked out
with black, similarly placed, were the identifying
marks; and it required but a slight sketch
of fancy to endow them with life. They certainly
seemed to have more will and power than
the poor puppet-heads grinning and gesticulating
in the cells forming a portion of their
flexible tail; and we at last came to regard
the noisy puffing snorters as proud-spirited
genii, whose humours must be studied under
fearful penalties. In the brief lulls, we questioned
our companion concerning his mode and
time of work, and other matters.

"Yes, sir, it do require a man to be mindful
as to what he's a-doing of there ain't no doubt
o' that?, and, as I said to the superintendent the
other day, a signalman must be allers right"
—Waller smiled here not without a touch of
bitterness—"allers right he must be, let who
will be wrong, and that's where it is. No, sir,
I don't make no complaint of the hours, which
is considered moderate— eight hours in the
twenty-four, which, as I told you, I came on at
sivin thirty, and at one thirty I'm due off.