“I never said anything of the sort, because there isn’t any branch line.”
“No branch line? Why, there it is before my eyes! There’s a locomotive, of a kind, and a composite passenger and freight-car that evidently dates from the time of the Deluge. Noah used that car!” cried the angry stranger.
“Well, if Noah was here, he wouldn’t use it for two hours and a half,” said the station-master complacently.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” protested the stranger. “Is there, or is there not, a train in two hours and a half?”
“Of course there is.”
“You said a minute ago there wasn’t.”
“I didn’t say anything of the kind, and if you weren’t adding your own natural heat to the unnatural heat of the day, you’d learn something. You were talking about branch lines; I said there is no branch line. That’s all.”
“Then what’s the meaning of those two lines of rust running to the right?”
“There’s five or six thousand people,” droned the station-master, “who’d like to know what that object you’re referring to really is. Leastways, they used to want to know, but lately they’ve given up all curiosity on the subject. They’re the shareholders, who put up good money to have that road made. We call it the Farmers’ Road, and it isn’t a branch, but as independent as the main line.”
“Or as yourself,” hazarded the young man.