Steam and Spuds.

He is not very talkative, the man in front; but he is pleasant and entirely human.

He is not weighed down by the sense of his responsibility, because he is a master of his craft and possesses calm confidence won from experience. His eye is blue and steady, and his complexion is ruddy and a trifle glossy, as if the heat of the tunnels had been mitigated by a touch of engine oil.

He never hurries, but his every action is the essence of quiet promptitude. You, who ride behind, do not see much of him. While you recline in your comfortable seats with your newspapers and books, he is leaning out of his window, watching the track ahead, slowing down on the bends, noting the signals, and keeping a vigilant eye on the crossings. When your train has pulled up and you are bustling to and from the refreshment room or absorbing the details of the countryside, he is quietly going round his engine—touching her here and there, as a horseman tenderly seeks a sore spot on his mount; armed with ubiquitous oil can and wad of cotton waste, he ministers to his engine's joints and pins and bolts and bearings, all of which he knows by their right and proper names (which I do not); a squirt of oil here, a pause, and an extra squint there; everything O.K., and he heaves himself into the cab again.

A shunter, walking by, passes the time of day with him. They discuss potatoes; spuds! Somehow it seems incongruous that an engine-driver should be interested in growing potatoes; potatoes are so immobile and engine-drivers are so moveable; but it reduces him to the level of ordinary mortals while, paradoxically, leaving him on the pedestal on which we placed him in the days of our youth. I even suspect that he has a wife and family and reads the paper o'nights, like lesser people, with his feet on the mantelpiece.