als--he's allowed so much more. Some will make from
five to ten shillings a week that way. I don't complain of the wages
particular; but it's hard lines for such as us, to have to pay
income-tax. The company gives an account of all our wages, and we have
to pay. It's a shame.

"Our domestic life--our life at home, you mean? Well, as to that, we
don't see much of our families. I leave home at half-past seven in the
morning, and don't get back again until half-past nine, or maybe later.
The children are not up when I leave, and they've gone to bed again
before I come home. This is about my day:--Leave London at 8.45; drive
for four hours and a half; cold snack on the engine step; see to engine;
drive back again; clean engine; report myself; and home. Twelve hours'
hard and anxious work, and no comfortable victuals. Yes, our wives are
anxious about us; for we never know when we go out, if we'll ever come
back again. We ought to go home the minute we leave the station, and
report ourselves to those that are thinking on us and depending on us;
but I'm afraid we don't always. Perhaps we go first to the public-house,
and perhaps you would, too, if you were in charge of a engine all day
long. But the wives have a way of their own, of finding out if we're all
right. They inquire among each other. 'Have you seen my Jim?' one says.
'No,' says another, 'but Jack see him coming out of the station half an
hour ago.' Then she knows that her Jim's all right, and knows where to
find him if she wants him. It's a sad thing when any of us have to carry
bad news to a mate's wife. None of us likes that job. I remember when
Jack Davidge was killed, none of us could face his poor missus with the
news. She had seven children, poor thing, and two of 'em, the youngest,
was down with the fever. We got old Mrs. Berridge--Tom Berridge's
mother--to break it to her. But she knew summat was the matter, the
minute the old woman went in, and, afore she spoke a word, fell down like
as if she was dead. She lay all night like that, and never heard from
mortal lips until next morning that her Jack was killed. But she knew it
in her heart. It's a pitch and toss kind of a life ours!

"And yet I never was nervous on a engine but once. I never think of my
own life. You go in for staking that, when you begin, and you get used
to the risk. I never think of the passengers either. The thoughts of a
engine-driver never go behind his engine