The company had been in operation about a year, during which time it had dealt mainly with imaginary certificates of stock, bonds, rolling stock, and other material, the object being to give the students a knowledge of railroad business. The actual building of the road had rendered the company somewhat more real; but, as all the property was in fact owned by Major Toppleton, who held the bonds of the company for its full value, it was still to the students an educational rather than a practical business enterprise. The real owner, therefore, was the real manager of the road. He told the directors what votes to pass, and they were pliant enough to obey. All the forms of electing officers, appointing the superintendent, road-master, engineers, and other officers, were punctiliously adhered to. The capital stock of the company was two hundred thousand dollars, represented by two thousand shares of one hundred dollars each, which had been apportioned among the students of the Institute, in unequal parts. Some owned one hundred shares, others only two or three. Tommy Toppleton was the happy possessor of a quarter part of the capital stock of the concern, and threw five hundred votes, each representing a share, in a stockholders’ meeting. An account was kept with each owner of stock, and transfers from one to another were frequent. I am sorry to detract from the dignity of the enterprise by confessing that a share, whose par value was one hundred dollars, was frequently bartered away for a pint of pea-nuts, though, as the road, like many others, was mortgaged for its full value, perhaps the compensation was adequate. Two thousand mortgage bonds of one hundred dollars each had been issued, duly signed by the officers, and bearing interest at seven per cent. As the company had no receipts for the first quarter of the year, the railroad was heavily in debt, and the students were not likely to be burdened with any extra spending money from their dividends. I had run the dummy during the fall and winter, carrying passengers as far as Grass Springs; not for the fun of it, but at regular fares--twenty cents to Spangleport, five miles distant, fifty cents to the Springs, thirteen miles, and between the two latter points, thirty cents. There had been considerable travel, enough to make a breeze with the steamboat company, though not enough to pay the interest and expenses of running.