"I agree, they are temporary goods."
"Well, it was funny, but here we had too much and too little of a good thing, and were as near in hot squalls as could be. I expect they made a mistake in loading them; anyhow, young Jack, my ganger, found he had no half-rounds, but a lot of rectangulars. He is a bit impetuous, and would not wait, it's not in him, so he put in all rectangulars that day, and, of course, with the result that they had not enough rectangulars left for the other road all through, so about six or seven chains were nearly all half-rounds, and he actually placed one rectangular one side of a rail joint, and a half-round on its back, flat end upwards, on the other, and so a lot of the half-rounds did duty for rectangulars.
"It was a bit of a scurry, and as soon as the road was in the spikers, ballasters and packers were on us, and no time for thinking. Well, neither me nor Jack gained much by the fun, except our men would have been stopped, and they were not, and things would have been put out a bit for the day. My guv'nor did not know, or would have made us pull it all up and put it in right. Now, they knew the number of sleepers, &c., that had been served out, and had sufficient confidence in me to be sure I never scamped the materials, except a bit of ballast here and there, and that is soon made up.
"Of course, there was no mistake six or seven chains of road were weak, and I told Jack to put in a little extra good ballast and pack the sleepers well there, and what he did extra at that place was to come out of the part where all the rectangulars were, for I never throw away or lose anything on purpose."
"Quite right, we agree. Shake, for I'm hearty to you."
"He understood how I wanted the wind to blow, and it would have gone on all serene, but you know, just when you think you are out of a scrape, you sometimes find you are in it, or as near to it as wants 'an old parliamentary hand' to explain and fog away. I was down at the junction, when I saw the engineer, and some swells with him. The resident engineer was away that day. After a bit of jaw among them, they beckoned to me, and said they wanted to go to the end of the line, the very place where some of the sleepers were lying turned on their round faces. There was a bit of luck. I felt dead wrong. However, they had to walk about a couple of miles, and then wait till the engine had returned with the empties; so I said to the engineer, 'Please excuse me, sir, but I will arrange that the engine is at the ballast hole at four o'clock, as you wish, and I will be back to attend upon you as quickly as I can.'
"I scampered up the slope of the cutting and out with an envelope. I always keep one or two about me handy. I tore out a leaf of my note-book, and called young Snipper, the brake boy, and said to him, 'Jump on old Leather's nag. Take this to young Jack, and I'll make it all right for you when I see you next time; but go quickly, and give this letter to no one else but young Jack. If he is away for more than a few minutes bring the letter back to me. No—wait till he comes up, and send someone to fetch him to you. You understand.' 'Yes, sir, I know what you mean.' 'Now do a bit of the Johnny Gilpin business.' Off he went, and was busy.
"This is what I wrote to young Jack, my ganger:—'Bosses has come, and will be up to you in about an hour. X.... them. Cover up the ends of the half-rounds, and sprinkle them pretty with fine ballast if you can do it in an hour. Then shunt the empties or the full wagons over where the half-rounds are, and look innocent, as if you had never moved above a foot all day, and be busy, or I'll pull your throat out, much as I love you. Smooth it right, and leave rest to me. Pull all your gumption out ready. Keep this, and hand it back to me. Show no one, or I'll have you hung. If I find all right, there are two pints, and something else.' That's what I call a business letter. No double meaning about it.
"Young Snipper got there in double quick time, and young Jack was there as well. I saw he had carried out my letter of instructions. Still, I knew the engineer would be likely to twig, as he was near to being hawk-eyed. Now, I felt sure they would be hanging about for an hour, perhaps two, as most of them had never been up there before, and they thought of carrying the line on further to somewhere or other, but they did not on account of the expense, for several tunnels, viaducts, high retaining walls, and other heavy work would be required. Here was the very place for a rack railway on some system like Abt's, it seemed to me. I saw one at work in Germany, and know they are safely used in Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and in North and South America. As you know, you cannot nicely work a railway by adhesion only much above a gradient of one in fifty with sharp curves upon it, or one in forty on a straight line, consequently the rack is the thing to use then, I fancy, for on the Abt rack railway the pinions on the engine can be easily put in and out of gear on the rack, and the journey be continued by simple adhesion, as by an ordinary locomotive, and the rack system works all right round moderate curves.
"I should think, in hilly parts of the country there are many places where 4 feet 8½ inch gauge railways could be laid out almost on the surface of the ground, and at such gradients as about one in fourteen, and there should be no difficulty in working them safely, because similar lines have been worked for many years. There must be many little feeder lines that end nowhere almost now, that could be so continued over the hills to a main line, and thus join two large traffic trunk lines, and raise the feeder from obscurity to some importance, and from the state of a mere agricultural 5l. to 10l. per mile per week line of railway to one earning more than double. However, that's by the way. Now, my best game was to draw the swells away as quickly as I could, and yet not show them my hand. I started badly, though, for I said, 'Gentlemen, I think a shower is coming up over the hills, and if you command me, I will tell the engine driver to run you down quickly by himself, and come back for these empties. It won't delay the work in any way, gentlemen all.' They said, 'Never mind; if there was a shower they could stand upon the sleepers by the wagons and get sufficient shelter.'