In the mean time, some of the humble personages in our drama, being fixed in certain grooves, remain there uneventfully, the only changes that occur to them being marked by the hand of time. Mr. Podmore continues in his situation on the railway, works as hard and as long hours as ever, comes home as tired as ever, but more often now with a "daze" upon him, as he expresses it. This "daze"--he has no idea how he got hold of the word--gives him terrible frights at times, and causes him to be oblivious of what passes around him. It never comes upon him but when he is dead-beat, when what is known as a fair day's work is turned into a foul day's work by the abominable system which coins large dividends out of its servants' health, and which taxes their strength so unfairly as to bring old age upon men long before it is naturally due. Jim Podmore is fearful to speak of this "daze" to any one, for if it were known to the officers of the company, short shrift would be his portion. Such a sympathetic affection as humanity holds no place in the schemes and calculations of railway directors. Given so much bone and blood and muscle: how much strain can they bear? This ascertained, apply the strain to its utmost, until blood, bone, and muscle can no longer bear it, and fail, naturally, to perform their task. Then throw aside, and obtain fresh. Jim Podmore would not thus have expressed it, but the conclusion at which he had arrived is the same as the conclusion here set down. The only person who knows of his fast-growing infirmity is his wife. He confides to her the various stages of this "daze;" how he goes to work of a morning pretty fresh, and how, when his fair day's work is being turned into a foul day's work by the directors' strain, he begins to tire. "I seem to--fall asleep--gradually," he says, "although I hear--everything about me. All the wear and tear--of the day--all the noise--all the slamming and shouting--all the whistling and puffing--seem to get into the middle--of my head--and buzz there--as if they were bees. And so I go off--with this buzzing. Then I jump up--in a fright--just in time, old woman!--to shift the points--but I'm all of a tremble--and feel fit to die. Then I fall off--into a daze again--and the buzzing goes on--in my head. Then Snap--good old dog!"--(Snap licks the hand that pats its head) "pulls at my trousers--sometimes--and wakes me. Suppose I shouldn't--rouse myself in time--some time or other--and something was to occur! What then, old woman? I wake up--in the middle of a night--often--thinking of it--with the perspiration--a-running down me." Mrs. Podmore does her best to comfort him, but she cannot suggest a cure for Jim's "daze." "You see, old woman," he says, "it wouldn't do--for me--to fall ill even--and be laid up--for a week or two. That might do me good--but it wouldn't do. Where's the money--to come from? We couldn't lay our hands--on a spare half a crown--to save our lives." Which was a fact.