ss the bog with Molly by his side.

At the end of half an hour he awoke to the fact that the train was still
at rest. He looked out again and saw nothing except the rain, the bog,
and the cottage. This time he opened the window and put out his head. He
looked up the line and down it. There was no one to be seen.

"The signals," thought Sir James, "must be against us." He looked again,
first out of one window, then out of the other. There was no signal in
sight. The single line of railway ran unbroken across the bog, behind
the train and in front of it. Sir James, puzzled, and a little wet, drew
back into his compartment and shut the window. He waited, with rapidly
growing impatience, for another half hour. Nothing happened. Then he saw
a man come out of the cottage near the line. He was carrying a basket
in one hand and a teapot in the other. He approached the train. He
came straight to Sir James' compartment and opened the door. Sir James
recognised the engine driver.

"I was thinking," said the man, "that maybe your honour would be glad
of a cup of tea and a bit of bread. I am sorry there is no butter, but,
sure, butter is hard to come by these times."

He laid the teapot on the floor and put the basket on the seat in front
of Sir James. He unpacked it, taking out a loaf of home made bread, a
teacup, a small bottle of milk, and a paper full of sugar.

"It's not much to be offering a gentleman like yourself," he said, "but
it's the best we have, and seeing that you'll be here all night and best
part of to-morrow you'll be wanting something to eat."

Sir James gasped with astonishment.

"Here all night!" he said. "Why should we be here all night? Has the
engine broken down?"

"It has not," said the driver.

"Then you must go on," said Sir James. "I insist on your going on at
once."

The driver poured out a cup of tea and handed it to Sir James. Then he
sat down and began to talk in a friendly way.

"Sure, I can't go on," he said, "when I'm out on strike."

Sir James was so startled that he upset a good deal of tea. As Head of
the Ministry of Strikes he naturally had great experience, but he had
never before heard of a solitary engine driver going on strike in the
middle of a bog.

"The way of it is this," the driver went on. "It was giv out, by them
that does be managing things that there was to be a general strike on
the first of next month. You might have heard of that, for it was in all
the papers."