me nearer to the
ground than most windows do.

Mr Tipps wrote somewhat nervously. He inherited his mother's weakness
in this respect; and, besides, his nerves had been a little shaken, by
the sudden illness, with which his sister had been seized that day, at
his lodgings.

Outside on the platform a few people lounged, waiting the arrival of the
expected train. Among them was one whose bulky frame and firm
strongly-lined countenance spoke of much power to dare and do. He was
considerably above the middle height and somewhere about middle age.
His costume was of that quiet unobtrusive kind which seems to court
retirement, and the sharp glance of his eyes seemed to possess something
of the gimblet in their penetrating power. This was no less a personage
than Mr Sharp, the inspector of police on the Grand National Trunk
Railway. Mr Inspector Sharp had evidently an eye for the beautiful,
for he stood at the farther extremity of the platform gazing in rapt
attention at the sun, which just then was setting in a flood of golden
light. But Mr Sharp had also a peculiar faculty for observing several
things at once. Indeed, some of his friends, referring to this, were
wont to remark that he was a perfect Argus, with eyes in his elbows and
calves and back of his head. It would seem, indeed, that this, or
something like it, must really have been the case, for he not only
observed and enjoyed the sunset but also paid particular attention to
the conversation of two men who stood not far from him, and at the same
time was cognisant of the fact that behind him, a couple of hundred
yards or more up the line, a goods engine was engaged in shunting
trucks.

This process of shunting, we may explain for the benefit of those who
don't know, consists in detaching trucks from trains of goods and
shoving them into sidings, so that they may be out of the way, until
their time comes to be attached to other trains, which will convey them
to their proper destination, or to have their contents, if need be,
unloaded and distributed among other trucks. Shunting is sometimes a
tedious process, involving much hauling, pushing, puffing, and
whistling, on the part of the engine, and uncoupling of trucks and
shifting of points on the part of pointsmen and porters. There is
considerable danger, too, in the process,--or rather there _was_ danger
before the introduction of the "block system," which now, when it is
adopted, renders accidents almost