a loss and a
lot of palace-stations and clocks like Maryborough's at another loss, the
government has got to economize somewhere hasn't it? Very well look at
the rolling stock. That's where they save the money. Why, that train
from Maryborough will consist of eighteen freight-cars and two
passenger-kennels; cheap, poor, shabby, slovenly; no drinking water, no
sanitary arrangements, every imaginable inconvenience; and slow?--oh, the
gait of cold molasses; no air-brake, no springs, and they'll jolt your
head off every time they start or stop. That's where they make their
little economies, you see. They spend tons of money to house you
palatially while you wait fifteen minutes for a train, then degrade you
to six hours' convict-transportation to get the foolish outlay back.
What a rational man really needs is discomfort while he's waiting, then
his journey in a nice train would be a grateful change. But no, that
would be common sense--and out of place in a government. And then,
besides, they save in that other little detail, you know--repudiate their
own tickets, and collect a poor little illegitimate extra shilling out of
you for that twelve miles, and----"

"Well, in any case----"

"Wait--there's more. Leave that American out of the account and see what
would happen. There's nobody on hand to examine your ticket when you
arrive. But the conductor will come and examine it when the train is
ready to start. It is too late to buy your extra ticket now; the train
can't wait, and won't. You must climb out."

"But can't I pay the conductor?"

"No, he is not authorized to receive the money, and he won't. You must
climb out. There's no other way. I tell you, the railway management is
about the only thoroughly European thing here--continentally European I
mean, not English. It's the continental business in perfection; down
fine. Oh, yes, even to the peanut-commerce of weighing baggage."

The train slowed up at his place. As he stepped out he said:

"Yes, you'll like Maryborough. Plenty of intelligence there. It's a
charming place--with a hell of a hotel."

Then he was gone. I turned to the other gentleman:

"Is your friend in the ministry?"

"No--studying for it."

CHAPTER XXXII.

The man with a new idea is a Crank until the idea succeeds.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

It was Junior England all the way to Christchurch--in fact, just a
garden. And C