But Mr. Bartlett only shook his head.
“And they say the stage is done for, put out of business by that ornery looking concern. I don't believe it, people's got too much sense. I wouldn't like to think my fellers was such damn fools. What time will she make, do you reckon; ten miles an hour?”
“Twice that, three times that,” said Benson.
Mr. Bartlett shook his head.
“That,” said he, “is one of your yarns. It can't be done; a man can't set still and get his breath going at that clip. Blame it! we are coming to pretty times. It will scare the hosses, it will run over cows; damned if it ain't real dangerous! What's to keep it from just scooting off through the fields, from getting clear loose?” He skipped back suddenly in some alarm as the engine rolled past, but when it came to a stop he recovered his courage. “The town's done for,” he mourned. “I'm glad I ain't a property owner; catch me owning a house in a town that's got a railroad! Travel will just be sliding past at a top-notch gait; it ain't going to be like the stage, where all hands stop to take a drink at the tavern and put good money in circulation. Now they'll be piling through in their foolish haste. The big towns 'll suck the blood out of the little towns.”
“His is the world-old cry against the new,” murmured the judge in the colonel's ear with a wise shake of the head.
“They say the government's stopped work on the national roads!” cried Mr. Bartlett more in sorrow than in anger. “And the canals is done for, too! Well, there's plenty of sense in a canal, for its natural to ride on the water, and I ain't opposed to anything that's natural, but I'm agin all foolishness.”
An old man, bent and withered, and leaning heavily on a cane, pushed his eager way into the centre of the little group.
“Why, Mr. Randall, what are you doing here?” said the stage driver. “I reckon you don't take much stock in this foolishness? You've heard a heap too much nonsense talked in your time to be fooled now.”
The old man shot him a shrewd glance out of his beady black eyes.