at far away with fragments strewed
the sea, as the boy that stood on the burning deck used to say. The
government chooses to do its railway business in its own way, and it
doesn't know as much about it as the French. In the beginning they tried
idiots; then they imported the French--which was going backwards, you
see; now it runs the roads itself--which is going backwards again, you
see. Why, do you know, in order to curry favor with the voters, the
government puts down a road wherever anybody wants it--anybody that owns
two sheep and a dog; and by consequence we've got, in the colony of
Victoria, 800 railway stations, and the business done at eighty of them
doesn't foot up twenty shillings a week."

"Five dollars? Oh, come!"

"It's true. It's the absolute truth."

"Why, there are three or four men on wages at every station."

"I know it. And the station-business doesn't pay for the sheep-dip to
sanctify their coffee with. It's just as I say. And accommodating?
Why, if you shake a rag the train will stop in the midst of the
wilderness to pick you up. All that kind of politics costs, you see.
And then, besides, any town that has a good many votes and wants a fine
station, gets it. Don't you overlook that Maryborough station, if you
take an interest in governmental curiosities. Why, you can put the whole
population of Maryborough into it, and give them a sofa apiece, and have
room for more. You haven't fifteen stations in America that are as big,
and you probably haven't five that are half as fine. Why, it's
perfectly elegant. And the clock! Everybody will show you the clock.
There isn't a station in Europe that's got such a clock. It doesn't
strike--and that's one mercy. It hasn't any bell; and as you'll have
cause to remember, if you keep your reason, all Australia is simply
bedamned with bells. On every quarter-hour, night and day, they jingle a
tiresome chime of half a dozen notes--all the clocks in town at once, all
the clocks in Australasia at once, and all the very same notes; first,
downward scale: mi, re, do, sol--then upward scale: sol, si, re, do--down
again: mi, re, do, sol--up again: sol, si, re, do--then the clock--say at
midnight clang--clang--clang--clang--clang-clang--clang--clang--clang
--clang----and, by that time you're--hello, what's all this excitement
about? a runaway--scared by the train; why, you think this train could
scare anything. Well, when they build eighty stations at