The porters were less philosophical. All their domestic and personal arrangements were planned on the theory of a week's wages on Friday, and no other day. The wives might have been allowed to postpone the purchase of the Sunday joint and the rest of the needful week's supply of provision, but every man had engagements which could not be so easily deferred. Every Friday night the porters assembled at a "public" to spend a convivial hour. Was this enjoyment to be sacrificed, or even postponed? It was more than human nature, cast in the railway-porter mould, could endure without protests as loud as they were deep. Were they to be laughed at, and jeered at, and told that the company was insolvent, that their masters couldn't pay their wages? It was too bad. Hadn't they feelings as well as a secretary, or a general manager, or a director, or the chairman of a board? That was what they would like to know. They meant to say it was shameful, scandalous, atrocious, and abominable, and worthy of harsher terms of description. This is not only what they meant to say, it is what they did say. During the night the news had circulated up and down the line, and over all its tributaries. In the morning it was known to the secretary and the chief cashier. The circumstances of the case were so peculiar, that these leading functionaries did not feel themselves competent to deal with it. The secretary hastened to confer with the chairman of the board, who again consulted two of his colleagues, who happened to be in Town, and, in consequence, certain steps were taken. In the first place a cheque was drawn upon the company's bankers for the amount they had been robbed of--exactly 2310_l._ 18_s._ 6_d._; and a clerk was despatched to all the stations for the satisfaction and comfort of all the indignant servants, who had now grown clamorous for their wages.