ed on my
reading them over with him to make sure of correct transmission. There
was one to Mr. Hinckley, one to Mr. Ballard, and two to Miss Josephine
Trescott. One ran thus, "Success seems assured. Rejoice with me. J. B.
C." The other was as follows: "In game between Railway Giants and
Country Jakes here to-day, visiting team wins. Score, 9 to 0. Barslow,
catcher, disabled. Crick in neck looking at high buildings. Have Mrs. B.
prepare porous plaster for Saturday next. Sell Halliday stock short, and
buy L. & G. W. And in name all things good and holy don't tell Giddings!
J. R. E."

CHAPTER XIV.

In which we Learn Something of Railroads, and Attend Some Remarkable
Christenings.

And so, in due time, it came to pass that, our Aladdin having rubbed the
magic ring with which his Genius had endowed him, there came, out of
some thunderous and smoky realm, peopled with swart kobolds, and lit by
the white fire of gushing cupolas and dazzling billets, a train of
carriages, drawn by a tamed volcanic demon, on a wonderful way of steel,
armed strongly to deliver us from the Castle Perilous in which we were
besieged by the Giants. The way was marvelously prepared by theodolite
and level, by tented camps of men driving, with shouts and cracking
whips, straining teams in circling mazes, about dark pits on grassy
hillsides, and building long, straight banks of earth across swales; by
huge machines with iron fists thrusting trunks of trees into the earth;
by mighty creatures spinning great steel cobwebs over streams.

At last, a short branch of steel shot off from Pendleton's Pacific
Division, grew daily longer and longer, pushed across the level
earth-banks, the rows of driven tree-trunks, and the spun steel cobwebs,
through the dark pits, nearer and nearer to Lattimore, and at last
entered the beleaguered city, amid rejoicings of the populace. Most of
whom knew but vaguely the facts of either siege or deliverance; but who
shouted, and tossed their caps, and blew the horns and beat the drums,
because the _Herald_ in a double-leaded editorial assured them that this
was _the_ event for which Lattimore had waited to be raised to complete
parity with her envious rivals. Furthermore, Captain Tolliver,
magniloquently enthusiastic, took charge of the cheering, artillery, and
band-music, and made a tumultuous success of it.

"He told me," said Giddings, "that when the people of the North can be
brought for a moment into that subj