ident set fire to the carpet, he
was found after the conflagration had subsided standing serenely amongst
the wreckage. When challenged as to its cause, "I cannot tell a lie," he
replied calmly; "I did it with my little gadget." A few months later
he and the present Ambassador of Great Britain at Washington had
constructed a double line of miniature tracks, which connected all the
rooms on the ground floor of the house and considerably interfered
with the parlourmaid's duties. It was known to the family as the Great
Auckland Railway. Another favourite hobby of the young engineer was to
lie on his back and watch the spider spin her web, comparing the results
with a railway map of Great Britain. It was seldom that he went to bed
without having learnt at least a page of _Bradshaw_ by heart.

Going from strength to strength this apparently dreamy lad had climbed
the giddy rungs of fame until, at the outbreak of war, he stood with the
ball at his feet and the title of Deputy General Manager of the N.E.R.
It was he who had invented the system whereby the handle of the heating
apparatus in railway carriages could be turned either to OFF or ON
without any consequent infiltration of steam, thereby saving passengers
from the peril of death by suffocation. It was he who, thumping the
table with an iron fist, had insisted vehemently that caged parrots
travelling in the rack should, if capable of speech, be compelled to pay
the full fare. It was he who effected one of the greatest economies that
the line had ever known by using rock-cakes which had served their term
of years in the refreshment-room as a substitute for the keys which hold
the metals of the permanent way in their chairs.

In the summer of 1914 he was about to adopt a patent device for
connecting the official notices in compartments with gramophones
concealed under the seats in such a way that when humourists had by dint
of much labour made the customary emendations, such as "IT IS DANGEROUS
TO LEAP OUT OF THE WINDOWS," "TO STOP THE RAIN PULL DOWN THE CHAIN" and
"TO EAT FIVE PERSONS ONLY," a loud and merry peal of laughter should
suddenly hail the completed masterpiece.

Armageddon supervened, and the rest of Sir ERIC GEDDES' career is
history. When a new and sure hand was needed at the Admiralty, Mr. LLOYD
GEORGE was not long in making the only suitable choice. Sir ERIC GEDDES'
bluff hearty manner, positively smacking, despite his inland training,
of all that a viki