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Updated: May 20, 2025
The engine-driver watched from his cabin for the waving of the green flag which would authorise him to push over his levers and start the train. The great moment had almost arrived. The guard held his whistle to his lips, and had the green flag ready to be unfurled, in his left hand. Then a totally unexpected, almost an unprecedented, thing occurred.
He would not be an explorer, after all, nor an engine-driver nor chimney-sweep. He would be a man of mystery, a murderer, fighter, forger. He fingered his ears tentatively. They seemed fixed on jolly fast. He glanced with utter contempt at his father who had just come in. His father's life of blameless respectability seemed to him at that minute utterly despicable.
'O, sir! said Toad, crying afresh, 'I am a poor unhappy washerwoman, and I've lost all my money, and can't pay for a ticket, and I must get home to-night somehow, and whatever I am to do I don't know. O dear, O dear! 'That's a bad business, indeed, said the engine-driver reflectively. 'Lost your money and can't get home and got some kids, too, waiting for you, I dare say?
The engineer looked at me and went on. "You rely on getting introductions to make a career for yourself with as little trouble as possible. Well, I don't care about introductions. Nobody helped me. Before I had this line, I was an engine-driver. I worked in Belgium as an ordinary lubricator. And what are you doing here, Panteley?" he asked, turning to Radish. "Going out drinking?"
And in that moment was heard a low voice singing dreamily the Dustman's curious little song. It seemed to come from the direction of the train where the Guard stood talking to a man the children had not noticed before. Presumably he was the engine-driver, since all the passengers were out now. But it may have been the old Dustman himself who sang it. They could not tell exactly.
The children had often wondered whether any engine-driver could be found noble enough to take them for a ride on an engine and now there she was. She dried her eyes and sniffed earnestly. "Now, then," said the fireman, "out with it. What do you mean by it, eh?" "Oh, please," sniffed Bobbie. "Try again," said the engine-driver, encouragingly. Bobbie tried again. "Please, Mr.
While our engine-driver was harnessing his iron steed, another of the railway servants, having eaten his dinner, felt himself rather sleepy, and resolved to have a short nap. It was our friend Sam Natly, the porter, who came to this unwise as well as unfair resolution.
He intended every child in it to be a model, just as the five young Gradgrinds were all models. No little Gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon; no little Gradgrind had ever learnt the silly jingle, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are"; each little Gradgrind having at five years old dissected the Great Bear, and driven Charles's Wain like a locomotive engine-driver.
An official would give a stranger free transportation; a station agent could give you a pass, and even an engine-driver could carry a man without asking permission.
The engine-driver refused to go more quickly, declaring that these crackers were signals placed there by the railway company, and that he could not risk every one's life on a mere supposition. The man was quite right, and he was certainly very brave.
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