We may easily imagine the anxiety felt by Mr. Stephenson during the progress of the works towards completion, and his mingled hopes and doubts (though his doubts were but few) as to the issue of this great experiment. When the formation of the line near Stockton was well advanced, Mr. Stephenson one day, accompanied by his son Robert and John Dixon, made a journey of inspection of the works. The party reached Stockton, and proceeded to dine at one of the inns there. After dinner, Stephenson ventured on the very unusual measure of ordering in a bottle of wine, to drink success to the railway. John Dixon relates with pride the utterance of the master on the occasion. “Now, lads,” said he to the two young men, “I venture to tell you that I think you will live to see the day when railways will supersede almost all other methods of conveyance in this country—when mail-coaches will go by railway, and railroads will become the great highway for the king and all his subjects. The time is coming when it will be cheaper for a working man to travel upon a railway than to walk on foot. I know there are great and almost insurmountable difficulties to be encountered; but what I have said will come to pass as sure as you live. I only wish I may live to see the day, though that I can scarcely hope for, as I know how slow all human progress is, and with what difficulty I have been able to get the locomotive thus far adopted, notwithstanding my more than ten years’ successful experiment at Killingworth.” The result, however, outstripped even the most sanguine anticipations of Stephenson; and his son Robert, shortly after his return from America in 1827, saw his father’s locomotive generally employed as the tractive power on railways.