siderable difficulties in getting the Bill through the House last session. There had really been no reason why it should not have been passed, except that the Commons objected to it merely because the line was practically to belong to a man who was not English.
Bilton laughed a short, rather shoulder-shrugging laugh.
' London is the last place to know what happens in London,' he said. ' The Bill was passed this afternoon. Lewis S. Palmer owns that line as much as I own my walking-stick. He could sit down on the up-track and Mrs. Palmer on the down-track, and stop all traffic if he chose. You don't seem to like it.'
Ginger rather resented this, chiefly because it was true.
' Why should I not like it?' he said.
' Can't say, I'm sure,' said Bilton. ' I guess your country ought to be very grateful. Palmer will show you how to run a line properly. He won't give you engines which are so pretty that they ought to be hung on the wall, and he won't give you cars covered with gilt and mirrors. But he'll run you trains quicker than you ever had them run yet; he'll give you express freight rates that will be as cheap as transport by sea, and he'll pull the two ports together like stringing beads, instead of letting them roll about unconnected. Of course, he'll get his bit out of it, but all the benefit of rapid transport and cheap fares will be yours. I guess your House of Commons was annoyed they didn't think of it themselves.'
They had got to Hyde Park Corner, and the fog had suddenly grown less dense and the darkness was clarified. Across the open square they could see the dark mass of the arch at the top of Constitution Hill, and farther on the dim shapes of the houses in Grosvenor Place. Hansoms no longer passed as if going to a funeral, but jingled merrily by to the cheerful beat of the horses' hoofs on the road. All the traffic was resuscitated; buses swayed and nodded;
