t them on soon enough. It's no use to say, when an
accident happens, that they did not put on the brakes in time; they swear
they did, and you can't prove that they didn't.

"Do I think that the tapping of the wheels with a hammer is a mere
ceremony? Well, I don't know exactly; I should not like to say. It's
not often that the chaps find anything wrong. They may sometimes be half
asleep when a train comes into a station in the middle of the night. You
would be yourself. They ought to tap the axle-box, but they don't.

"Many accidents take place that never get into the papers; many trains,
full of passengers, escape being dashed to pieces by next door to a
miracle. Nobody knows anything about it but the driver and the stoker.
I remember once, when I was driving on the Eastern Counties. Going round
a curve, I suddenly saw a train coming along on the same line of rails.
I clapped on the brake, but it was too late, I thought. Seeing the
engine almost close upon us, I cried to my stoker to jump. He jumped off
the engine, almost before the words were out of my mouth. I was just
taking my hand off the lever to follow, when the coming train turned off
on the points, and the next instant the hind coach passed my engine by a
shave. It was the nearest touch I ever saw. My stoker was killed. In
another half second I should have jumped off and been killed too. What
would have become of the train without us is more than I can tell you.

"There are heaps of people run over, that no one ever hears about. One
dark night in the Black Country, me and my mate felt something wet and
warm splash in our faces. 'That didn't come from the engine, Bill,' I
said. 'No,' he said; 'it's something thick, Jim.' It was blood. That's
what it was. We heard afterwards that a collier had been run over. When
we kill any of our own chaps, we say as little about it as possible.
It's generally--mostly always--their own fault. No, we never think of
danger ourselves. We're used to it, you see. But we're not reckless. I
don't believe there's any body of men that takes more pride in their work
than engine-drivers do. We are as proud and as fond of our engines as if
they were living things; as proud of them as a huntsman or a jockey is of
his horse. And a engine has almost as many ways as a horse; she's a
kicker, a plunger, a roarer, or what not, in her way. Put a stranger on
to my engine, and he wouldn't know what to do with her. Yes;