“We have at present no guarantee that you may not do it again; and, with our traffic, we must, in justice to our passengers, demand some form of guarantee. It must not serve as a precedent. All this might have been saved if you had only referred us to your legal representative.” The lawyer looked appealingly around the room. The dead-lock was complete. “Wilton,” I asked, “may I try my hand now?” “Anything you like,” said Wilton. “It seems I can’t talk English. I won’t build any wall, though.” He threw himself back in his chair. “Gentlemen,” I said deliberately, for I perceived that the doctor’s mind would turn slowly, “Mr. Sargent has very large interests in the chief railway systems of his own country.” “His own country?” said the lawyer. “At that age?” said the doctor. “Certainly. He inherited them from his father, Mr. Sargent, who was an American.” “And proud of it,” said Wilton, as though he had been a Western Senator let loose on the Continent for the first time. “My dear sir,” said the lawyer, half rising, “why did you not acquaint the Company with this fact—this vital fact—early in our correspondence? We should have understood. We should have made allowances.” “Allowances be damned. Am I a Red Indian or a lunatic?” The two men looked guilty. “If Mr. Sargent’s friend had told us as much in the beginning,” said the doctor, very severely, “much might have been saved.” Alas! I had made a life’s enemy of that doctor. “I hadn’t a chance,” I replied. “Now, of course, you can see that a man who owns several thousand miles of line, as Mr. Sargent does, would be apt to treat railways a shade more casually than other people.” “Of course; of course. He is an American; that accounts. Still, it _was_ the Induna; but I can quite understand that the customs of our cousins across the water differ in these particulars from ours. And do you always stop trains in this way in the States, Mr. Sargent?” “I should if occasion ever arose; but I’ve never had to yet. Are you going to make an international complication of the business?” “You need give yourself no further concern whatever in the matter. We see that there is no likelihood of this action of yours establishing a precedent, which was the only thing we were afraid of. Now that you understand that we cannot reconcile our system to any sudden stoppages, we feel quite sure that—” “I sha’n’t be staying long enough to flag another train,” Wilton said pensively. “You are returning, then, to our fellow-kinsmen across the—ah—big pond, you call it?” “_No_, sir. The ocean—the North Atlantic Ocean. It’s three thousand miles broad, and three miles deep in places. I wish it were ten thousand.” “I am not so fond of sea-travel myself; but I think it is every Englishman’s duty once in his life to study the great branch of our Anglo-Saxon race across the ocean,” said the lawyer. “If ever you come over, and care to flag any train on my system, I’ll—I’ll see you through,” said Wilton.