Small wonder! For the afternoon was well advanced, and the time-table had gone rather awry. But that did not in the least damp the ardour of the company. Refreshed by their belated meal, more toasts were honoured, more speeches made, and the future continued to assume the most roseate hue. The district, declared one orator, was destined to become "the abode of smiling happiness," and Newtown and Llanidloes "the haunts and hives of social industry." It was, said another, the first link in a chain "which must, ere long, form one of the greatest and most important trunk lines in the kingdom." "People," exclaimed a third, "laughed at it because it had no head or tail"; but let the scoffers wait and see! With all these glowing anticipations, proceedings became so protracted that the ladies had to withdraw, but the gentlemen went on drinking toasts with undiminished energy. They drank to the Chairman; they drank to the Secretary; they drank to the Engineer, and the Contractors, and the Bankers who had lent them the money, and to the success of the other railways springing up around them, including the Mid-Wales, the first sod of which was to be cut in a few days' time, with what strange accompaniment will be noted in a subsequent chapter. Not until the health of the Press,--"may its perfect independence ever expose abuses and advocate what is just, through evil and through good report,"--had been duly honoured did the company disperse. The workmen, too, were entertained, with good fare and more speeches. Salvers and cake baskets were presented to Messrs. Davies and Savin. Master Edward Davies, aged 5, and Master Tom Savin, aged 6, were held up aloft, and presented with watches, and the cheering, which had gone on almost continuously for hours, broke forth afresh. One of the workmen, who was also, at any rate, in the opinion of his colleagues, something of a poet, stepped forward, and, "amidst roars of laughter and tremendous cheering," sang his thanks as follows:-- Well now we've got a railway, The truth to you I'll tell, To be opened in August, The people like it well; We've heard a deal of rumour O'er all the country wide, We'll never get a railway, The people can't provide. Well now we have the carriages, For pleasure trips to ride; The Milford it shall run us, And Henry lad shall drive; There's also Jack the stoker, So handy and so free, He lives now at Llandiman, A buxom lad is he. We have a first rate gentleman Who does very nigh us dwell, And he has got a partner, The people like him well; Look at the trucks my boys, Their names you'll plainly see; They've took another Railway, There's plenty of work for we.