Every passenger is seated, the door of every carriage has received its last bang[75] at closing, even the inevitable last man has rushed in, panting and breathless, and has been shoved with main force, by at least a dozen sturdy porters, into a compartment. This last man is as inevitable as the dog at Epsom Races on the Derby Day, or any other incident of life, the absence of which is so impossible, that life could not go on without it. There always is—there always _must_ be—a last man; inexorable fate has so decided. Then it is that the gentleman in the braided green coat, with—as a further mark of distinction from other officials—a hat on, gracefully and graciously, with becoming dignity, yet withal not pompously, in short, exactly as befits a railway official of authority, weight, and consequence, waves a white flag which he has just received from an official of humbler grade standing beside him, once up, once down, and once more up again. He waves no more; the before-mentioned humbler official receiving the flag staff from his dignified chief, carefully folds it up, that it may be in readiness for precisely the same ceremony at the departure of each subsequent train; the chief (still dignified) gives a _vade-valeque_ motion of his right hand, the guard sounds his whistle, and all the bustle, life, excitement, and animation of ten minutes by-gone have as completely vanished, as if they had never existed. The engine has no sooner, by the slight movement of the “regulator” which the driver gently handles, received a first injection of steam into her cylinders than she starts into motion as a thing of life, with a weight behind her of not less than from 100 to 150 tons. The slow pace at starting is gradually increased, but she has scarcely passed the limit of the station when she is taught the lesson of life, which even the most favoured learn—that it is with her as with man, it is uphill work, at all events in its early stages, for in the first mile and a quarter she has to ascend the stiffest hill in her whole journey, “1 in 80,” Camden being just a hundred feet higher than Euston. Bury’s “four-wheelers,” the _dii maximi_ of railway engine power in 1810, were so weak that they could not bring a train, the weight of which was not a quarter of one of a modern date, up the “Euston incline” without the friendly aid of ropes worked by two fixed engines of high power, and two very high chimneys, at Camden. But the chimneys have long since disappeared, and the engines are doing good service in some other place belonging to the Company’s gigantic establishments. The engine and train emerge from the Primrose tunnel to hide themselves in a minute or two afterwards in that of Kilburn, and as they pass the station of that name, the reader may be reminded it was there that Dick Turpin began his ride to York, on Black Bess, 130 years ago[76]. Had it been mail horses of the olden time their run to Wimbledon (seven