“Ye–yes—why not?” he said slowly. “Of course, the lever would be very long, extremely long, and it might be necessary to stop the carriages on the way out. There might be breadth sufficient on the lever to plant small side stations.”
“An’ twenty minutes allowed for refreshments,” suggested Willie.
“Why, as to that,” said Mr Tippet, “if we stop at all, there could be no reasonable objection to refreshments, although it is probable we might find it difficult to get anyone sufficiently enterprising to undertake the supply of such a line; for, you know, if the lever were to slip at the fulcrum and fall—”
“Oh!” exclaimed Willie, “wouldn’t there be a smash; neither!”
“The danger of people falling off, too,” continued Mr Tippet, “might be prevented by railings run along the extreme edges of the lever.”
“Yes,” interrupted Willie, whose vivid imagination, unused to such excitement, had taken the bit in its teeth and run away with him; “an’ spikes put on ’em to keep the little boys from swinging on ’em, an’ gettin’ into mischief. Oh! what jolly fun it would be. Only think! we’d advertise cheap excursion trains along the Arkimeedis Line, Mondays an’ Toosdays. Fares, two hundred pounds, fust class. No seconds or parleys allowed for love or money. Starts from the Fuddlecrum Sta—”
“Fulcrum,” said Mr Tippet, correcting.
“Fulcrum Station,” resumed Willie, “at 2:30 a.m. of the mornin’ precisely. Stops at the Quarter, Half-way, an’ Three-quarter Stations, allowin’ twenty minutes, more or less, for grub—weather permittin’.”
“Your observations are quaint,” said Mr Tippet, with a smile; “but there is a great deal of truth in them. No doubt, the connection of such ideas, especially as put by you, sounds a little ludicrous; but when we come to analyse them, we see their possibility, for, if a lever of the size indicated by the ancient philosopher were erected (and theoretically, the thing is possible), then the subordinate arrangements as to a line of railway and stations, etcetera, would be mere matters of detail. It might be advertised, too, that the balance of the lever would be so regulated, that, on the arrival of the train at the terminus, the world would rise (a fact which might be seen by the excursionists, by the aid of enormous telescopes, much better than by the people at home), and that, on the return of the train, the world would again sink to its ancient level.
“There would be considerable risk, no doubt,” continued Mr Tippet meditatively, “of foolish young men and boys getting over the rails in sport or bravado, and falling off into the depths of illimitable profundity, but—”