"Puffing Billy," in fact, humble as its pretensions were, has proved to have been the type of all locomotives since.
"PUFFING BILLY."
Had George Stephenson satisfied himself? No. His evenings were chiefly spent at home with his son Robert, now under him in the colliery, studying and discussing together how to evoke the hidden power yet pent up in "Puffing Billy." The son was even more sanguine than his father, and many an amendment had "Billy" to undergo to satisfy the quick intellect and practical judgment of the youth.
Mr. Stephenson, delighted with Robert's scientific tastes and skill, and ever alive to the deficiencies of his own education, was anxious to give him still further advantages. For this purpose he took him from a promising post at the colliery, and sent him to the University of Edinburgh.
Here he enjoyed a six months' course of study; and so well prepared was he for it by his well-formed habits of application and thinking, that he gained in six months as much as many a student did in three years. Certain it was his father felt amply repaid for the draft it made on his purse, when Robert reappeared at the cottage, in the spring, with a prize for successful scholarship in mathematics. He was eighteen then.
CHAPTER IV.
TWO CITIES THAT WANTED TO GET NEAR EACH OTHER—A
NEW FRIEND.
Manchester, thirty miles north-east of Liverpool, is the great centre of the cotton trade in England. Its cloths are found in every market of the world. Cotton coming to Liverpool is sent to the Manchester mills; and the goods which the mills turn out are returned to Liverpool to be shipped. The two cities, therefore, are intimately connected by constant intercourse and mutual interest.