ur correspondence? We should have understood. We should have made
allowances."

"Allowances be damned. Am I a Red Indian or a lunatic?"

The two men looked guilty.

"If Mr. Sargent's friend had told us as much in the beginning," said the
doctor, very severely, "much might have been saved." Alas! I had made a
life's enemy of that doctor.

"I hadn't a chance," I replied. "Now, of course, you can see that a man
who owns several thousand miles of line, as Mr. Sargent does, would be
apt to treat railways a shade more casually than other people."

"Of course; of course. He is an American; that accounts. Still, it was
the Induna; but I can quite understand that the customs of our cousins
across the water differ in these particulars from ours. And do you
always stop trains in this way in the States, Mr. Sargent?"

"I should if occasion ever arose; but I've never had to yet. Are you
going to make an international complication of the business?"

"You need give yourself no further concern whatever in the matter. We
see that there is no likelihood of this action of yours establishing
a precedent, which was the only thing we were afraid of. Now that you
understand that we cannot reconcile our system to any sudden stoppages,
we feel quite sure that--"

"I sha'n't be staying long enough to flag another train," Wilton said
pensively.

"You are returning, then, to our fellow-kinsmen across the-ah-big pond,
you call it?"

"No, sir. The ocean--the North Atlantic Ocean. It's three thousand miles
broad, and three miles deep in places. I wish it were ten thousand."

"I am not so fond of sea-travel myself; but I think it is every
Englishman's duty once in his life to study the great branch of our
Anglo-Saxon race across the ocean," said the lawyer.

"If ever you come over, and care to flag any train on my system,
I'll--I'll see you through," said Wilton.

"Thank you--ah, thank you. You're very kind. I'm sure I should enjoy
myself immensely."

"We have overlooked the fact," the doctor whispered to me, "that your
friend proposed to buy the Great Buchonian."

"He is worth anything from twenty to thirty million dollars--four to
five million pounds," I answered, knowing that it would be hopeless to
explain.

"Really! That is enormous wealth. But the Great Buchonian is not in the
market."

"Perhaps he does not want to buy it now."

"It would be impossible under any circumstances," said the doctor.

"How characteristic!" mur