liked it. No, I didn't know
much about the engine scientifically, as you call it; but I could put her
to rights if anything went out of gear--that is to say, if there was
nothing broken--but I couldn't have explained how the steam worked
inside. Starting a engine, it's just like drawing a drop of gin. You
turn a handle and off she goes; then you turn the handle the other way,
put on the brakes, and you stop her. There's not much more in it, so
far. It's no good being scientific and knowing the principle of the
engine inside; no good at all. Fitters, who know all the ins and outs of
the engine, make the worst drivers. That's well known. They know too
much. It's just as I've heard of a man with regard to _his_ inside: if
he knew what a complicated machine it is, he would never eat, or drink,
or dance, or run, or do anything, for fear of busting something. So it
is with fitters. But us as are not troubled with such thoughts, we go
ahead.

"But starting a engine's one thing and driving of her is another. Any
one, a child a'most, can turn on the steam and turn it off again; but it
ain't every one that can keep a engine well on the road, no more than it
ain't every one who can ride a horse properly. It is much the same
thing. If you gallop a horse right off for a mile or two, you take the
wind out of him, and for the next mile or two you must let him trot or
walk. So it is with a engine. If you put on too much steam, to get over
the ground at the start, you exhaust the boiler, and then you'll have to
crawl along till your fresh water boils up. The great thing in driving,
is, to go steady, never to let your water get too low, nor your fire too
low. It's the same with a kettle. If you fill it up when it's about
half empty, it soon comes to the boil again; but if you don't fill it up
until the water's nearly out, it's a long time in coming to the boil
again. Another thing; you should never make spurts, unless you are
detained and lose time. You should go up a incline and down a incline at
the same pace. Sometimes a driver will waste his steam, and when he
comes to a hill he has scarcely enough to drag him up. When you're in a
train that goes by fits and starts, you may be sure that there is a bad
driver on the engine. That kind of driving frightens passengers
dreadful. When the train, after rattling along, suddenly slackens speed
when it ain't near a station, it may be in the middle of a tunnel, the
pas