The guard was perfectly right. Sir James was a man of most determined character. His career proved it. Before the war he had been professor of economics in a Scottish University, lecturing to a class of ten or twelve students for a salary of £250 a year. When peace came he was the head of a newly-created Ministry of Strikes, controlling a staff of a thousand or twelve hundred men and women, drawing a salary of £2,500 a year. Only a man of immense determination can achieve such results. He had garnered in a knighthood as he advanced. It was the reward of signal service to the State when he held the position of Chief Controller of Information and Statistics. “Let him not be saying afterwards that he didn’t get a proper warning,” said the engine driver. He walked towards his engine as he spoke. The guard and the station master followed him. “I suppose now, Michael,” said the guard, “that you’ll not be wanting me.” “I will not,” said the engine driver. “The train will do nicely without you for as far as I’m going to take her.” Sir James did not hear either the guard’s question or the driver’s answer. He did hear, with great satisfaction, what the station master said next. “Are you right there now?” the man shouted, “for if you are it’s time you were starting.” He unrolled a green flag and waved it. He blew a shrill blast on his whistle. The driver stepped into the cab of the engine and handled his levers. The train started. Sir James leaned back in the corner of his compartment and smiled. The track over which he travelled was badly laid and the train advanced by jerks and bumps. But the motion was pleasant to Sir James. Any forward movement of that train would have been pleasant to him. Each bump and jerk brought him a little nearer to Dunadea and therefore a little nearer to Miss Molly Dennison. Sir James was very heartily in love with a girl who seemed to him to be the most beautiful and the most charming in the whole world. Next day, such was his good fortune, he was to marry her. Under the circumstances a much weaker man than Sir James would have withstood the engine driver and resisted the invitation of Mrs. Mulcahy’s hotel in Finnabeg. Under the circumstances even an intellectual man of the professor type was liable to pleasant day dreams.