Jones stood aghast.
“Look here, Jones,” said Mr Sharp, gazing sternly into the culprit’s face, “you needn’t trouble yourself to deny the theft. I haven’t yet looked at the sole of this shoe, but I’ll engage to tell how many tackets are in it. We have discovered a little lump of clay down near the station, with a perfect impression of a sole having fifteen tackets therein,—three being wanting on the right, side, two on the left, and one at the toe—now, let us see,” he said, turning it up, “am I not a good prophet eh?”
Bill gave in at once! He not only made “a clean breast of it,” but also gave information that led to the capture of his accomplice before that day’s sun went down, and before Mr Sharp allowed himself to go to bed.
Thus did our superintendent winnow the chaff from the wheat continually.
Now, dear reader, do not say, “From all this it would appear that railway servants must be a bad lot of men!” It would be a thousand pities to fail into such an error, when we are labouring to prove to you the very reverse, namely, that the bad ones being continually and well “looked after,” none but the good are left. Our aim necessarily involves that we should dilate much on evil, so that the evil unavoidably bulks large in your eyes; but if we were capable of laying before you all the good that is done, felt and said by the thousands of our true-hearted men-of-the-line, the evil that is mingled with them would shrink into comparative insignificance.
The truth is, that in writing these details we desire to reassure ourself, as well as to comfort you, O timid railway traveller, by asserting and illustrating the unquestionable fact, that if our dangers on the line are numerous and great, our safeguards at all points are far more numerous and much greater.