_Name_ ................................................... _Address_ ................................................ * * * * * [Illustration: THE LAST STRAW. THE CAMEL DRIVER. "NOW, WHICH HUMP HAD THIS BETTER GO ON?" THE CAMEL. "IT'S ALL THE SAME TO ME. IT'S BOUND TO BREAK MY BACK ANYHOW."] * * * * * [Illustration: _Old Josh (who has just purchased stamp)._ "WOULD YER MIND A-STICKIN' OF IT ON FOR ME, MISSIE? OI BAIN'T NO SCHOLARD."] * * * * * UNAUTHENTIC IMPRESSIONS. III.--SIR ERIC GEDDES. Which is boyhood's commonest ambition, to run away to sea or to be something on a railway line? And how few, when they are grown up, find that they have realised either of these desires! The present Minister of Transport has freely confessed to his intimates that more than once, when he was floating paper-boats in his bath or climbing a tree in the garden to look out for icebergs from the crow's-nest, he felt in his child's heart that water was the ultimate quest, the adventure, the gleam. And yet for many a long year railways entranced and enslaved him. Often he would sit for hours, forgetful of the griddle cakes rapidly being burnt to a cinder, and gaze at the puffs of steam coming from the spout of the kettle or the quick vibrations of its lid, planning in his mind some greater and better engine that should be known perhaps as The Snorting Eric, and be enshrined in glass on Darlington platform. Once, when he had bought a small model stationary engine and the methylated spirit lamp had by some accident set fire to the carpet, he was found after the conflagration had subsided standing serenely amongst the wreckage. When challenged as to its cause, "I cannot tell a lie," he replied calmly; "I did it with my little gadget." A few months later he and the present Ambassador of Great Britain at Washington had constructed a double line of miniature tracks, which connected all the rooms on the ground floor of the house and considerably interfered with the parlourmaid's duties. It was known to the family as the Great Auckland Railway. Another favourite hobby of the young engineer was to lie on his back and watch the spider spin her web, comparing the results with a railway map of Great Britain. It was seldom that he went to bed without having learnt at least a page of _Bradshaw_ by heart.