“Do you hear that, your honour?” said the guard. “Michael here, says it would be better for you to stay in Finnabeg.”
“There’s a grand hotel, so there is,” said the station master, “the same that’s kept by Mrs. Mulcahy, and devil the better you’ll find between this and Dublin.”
Sir James looked from one man to the other in astonishment. Nowadays the public is accustomed to large demands from railway workers, demands for higher wages and shorter hours. But Sir James had never before heard of an engine driver who tried to induce a passenger to get out of his train fifteen miles short of his destination.
“I insist,” he said abruptly, “on your taking me on to Dunadea.”
“It’s what I told you all along, Michael,” said the guard. “He’s a mighty determined gentleman, so he is. I knew that the moment I set eyes on him.”
The guard was perfectly right. Sir James was a man of most determined character. His career proved it. Before the war he had been professor of economics in a Scottish University, lecturing to a class of ten or twelve students for a salary of £250 a year. When peace came he was the head of a newly-created Ministry of Strikes, controlling a staff of a thousand or twelve hundred men and women, drawing a salary of £2,500 a year. Only a man of immense determination can achieve such results. He had garnered in a knighthood as he advanced. It was the reward of signal service to the State when he held the position of Chief Controller of Information and Statistics.
“Let him not be saying afterwards that he didn’t get a proper warning,” said the engine driver.
He walked towards his engine as he spoke. The guard and the station master followed him.
“I suppose now, Michael,” said the guard, “that you’ll not be wanting me.”
“I will not,” said the engine driver. “The train will do nicely without you for as far as I’m going to take her.”