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There I met my brother managers in the Irish railway world, and learned something of the other lines. The leading men at the Conference were Ilbery, Great Southern and Western; Cotton, Belfast and Northern Counties; Plews and Shaw, Great Northern; Ward, Midland Great Western; and Skipworth, Manager in Ireland of the London and North-Western.
The list was the same as that on which the commissioner formerly went to work, except that the name of the Duke of Greenwich had been struck out, and two others added in his place, so that it stood thus: "Dukes of Doncaster and Stratford; Lords Coleman, Naresby, Skreene, Twisselton, Waltham, Wrexfield, Chelsea, and Lancaster; Sir Thomas Cope, Sir James Skipworth; Secretaries Arnold and Oldfield."
Skipworth Cary rose to his feet. The tears for his friend were still wet upon his lashes. Stooping, he took Lady Sherwood's hands in his and raised them to his lips. "As long as I live, I shall never forget," he said. "And others of us have seen it too in other ways be sure America will never forget, either."
My friend Gill not long before had left the service of the Midland Great Western, where he was Assistant Secretary, to become Secretary of the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway, and when Sir Ralph wrote to him about me he valiantly backed up Skipworth's fine recommendation. Skipworth was himself for several years manager of the Midland Great Western.
"He's the finest man that ever went up in the air," he had written home; and to his own family's disgust, his letters had been far more full of Chev Sherwood than they had been of Skipworth Cary. And now here he was, and he almost wished himself away wished almost that he was back again at the Front, carrying on under Chev. There, at least, you knew what you were up against.
The other hesitated a moment, and then said rather awkwardly, "Oh, I'm just home for a little while; I only got here this morning, in fact." Skipworth note the hesitation. Did the old people get panicky at the thought of entertaining a wild man from Virginia, and send an SOS for Gerald, he wondered. "We are so glad you could come to us," Lady Sherwood said rather hastily just then.
The Great Southern and Western consisted of 522 miles, the Great Northern 487, and the Midland Great Western 432, nearly seven times as long as the County Down. No wonder I felt elated. How it all came about was in this way. Skipworth, the London and North- Western Manager in Ireland, was on very friendly terms with Sir Ralph Cusack, and Sir Ralph had a high opinion of his judgment.
He consulted Skipworth about a manager and asked if he knew any railway man in Ireland, not too old, who would do. Said Skipworth, "Tatlow of the County Down. He has shown up remarkably well at the Clearing House over this terrible Railway and Canal Traffic Act, and seems to know all about it."
Skipworth wondered, with a sudden twist at his heart, if the war was playing the deuce with his home people, too. Was his own father going to pieces like this, and had his mother's gay vivacity fallen into that still remoteness of Lady Sherwood's? But of course not!
"My dear sir " he always addressed Archer as "sir" "I have sent for you to go into a little matter; a matter which, for the moment, I prefer not to mention either to Mr. Skipworth or Mr. Redwood."