This page has been validated.

THE FOURTH DIMENSION

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

[357]