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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 3 (June 1, 1935)

Introduction

Introduction.

A Doctor, a barrister, a banker and an engineer boarded the Limited together at Auckland with gun cases, fishing rods and bags labelled “National Park.”

As far as Frankton Junction they played some very solid bridge, but after leaving that station, the doctor, who was a merry looking little man with ruddy cheeks and snow white hair, trumped his partner's perfectly good nine and endeavoured to conciliate that gentleman's wrath by explaining that he was thinking of something else!

This seemed to the others a good enough reason for relaxing—and after some good-natured chaff at the doctor's expense—urged him to divulge whatever it was that had so engrossed him.

But the doctor had a better plan. He admitted that he could probably tell a yarn or two—but his modesty forbade his being the only performer, and he suggested that they should each in turn recount some incident or happening, and, to make it more interesting, cut the cards to decide the order in which they should do so. The pack was shuffled accordingly and each member of the party cut for himself, the doctor calling “Aces low.”

The barrister drew a knave, the banker an eight, the engineer an ace, and the doctor a three.

The engineer was a burly grizzled man of perhaps sixty-five and having drawn the lowest card, it fell to him to tell the first story. For some moments he gazed out of the window, straining to catch the fleeting forms of trees inky black against the receding lights of Te Awamutu—and then, turning his head, regarded first the card in his hand and then the faces of his companions with an enigmatical smile.

“The Ace of Diamonds,” he mused. “I'll tell you a story of how the ace of diamonds saved perhaps a whole train-load of people from disaster—months before the first train ran right through from Auckland to Wellington—nearly thirty years ago.”