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A locomotive engineer in England has recently written a book upon his art, in order, as he says, "to communicate that species of knowledge which it is necessary for an engine-driver to possess who aspires to take high rank on the footplate!" He magnifies his office, and evidently regards the position of an engineer as highly enviable.
The truck heeled further over under their pushing, and, the engine giving a shove at the right moment, it fell off the line and the track was clear. Safety and success appeared in sight together, but disappointment overtook them. The engine was about six inches wider than the tender, and the corner of its footplate would not pass the corner of the newly overturned truck.
The dust that rolled about the engine dimmed the glasses, the footplate rattled, and it looked as if his fireman was performing a clumsy dance. By and by he rather doubtfully opened the throttle to its widest. If the boiler primed again, he might knock out the cylinder-heads, but there was a steep pitch in front that was difficult to climb.
Alec entered the station and ran to one end of the platform as the train slowed down and the engine stopped just opposite where he stood. He gazed at the driver and his mate on the footplate. He followed every movement as the driver came round the engine with his long-nosed oil-can, and opened and shut small brass lids and felt the bearings with his hand to see whether they were hot.
An acclimatised Britisher, he had seen that summer eve from the footplate of an engine cab of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as it were, through the windows of loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly rural of happiness of the better land with Dockrell's wallpaper at one and ninepence a dozen, innocent Britishborn bairns lisping prayers to the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their pensums or model young ladies playing on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family rosary round the crackling Yulelog while in the boreens and green lanes the colleens with their swains strolled what times the strains of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a sacrifice, greatest bargain ever...
Yet his gauntleted hand never falls from the throttle-bar to the air-cock, and his eyes never leave the bubble appearing and disappearing at longer intervals in the heel of the water-glass. Shovel has stopped firing, and is hanging out of his window for the straining look ahead. Suddenly he drops to the footplate to grip Callahan's arm. "See!" he says.
They made what they called footplates, a plate about the size of a shoe sole with a picture of Christ upon it. When a person was brought whom they suspicioned as being a Christian they put this footplate down and commanded the accused one to stamp it. If this was done freely the person was allowed freedom, for they said no Christian would step on the face of Christ.
I then forced the operator to tell me if the line ahead was clear, and threatened to take the station-master under military arrest for trial at Harbin unless he announced my intention to start in that direction and cleared the way ahead. I put a soldier with fixed bayonet on the footplate to see that the driver held to his post and did not play tricks with the train, and started on our journey.
But again the corner of the footplate jammed with the corner of the truck, and again we came to a jarring halt. I have had, in the last four years, the advantage, if it be an advantage, of many strange and varied experiences, from which the student of realities might draw profit and instruction.
From time to time, Buck Bradley stopped his shoveling, and, holding by a hand-rail, leaned far out from the footplate, scanning the metals that stretched out in two parallel lines ahead. "Be like them varmints to hev blown up a bridge, or spiked a track," he muttered.
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