g madly past began to run hastily by, and
then to glide behind at a rate that was more in keeping with the dignity
of their nature. From sixty miles an hour the train passed by a rapid
transition to ordinary express speed, then to ordinary speed, then to
twenty miles an hour. Then Thomson felt that his opportunity had come.
He suddenly wrenched his wrists from their fastening, leaped head
foremost out of the window, fell on the embankment in a heap, and rolled
to the bottom, where he lay extended on his back as if dead.

Thus much Mrs Durby saw in one horrified glance and then fainted dead
away, in which condition she remained, to the great anxiety and distress
of Captain Lee, until the "Flying Dutchman," after doing seventy-eight
miles in one hour and a half, glided as softly up to the platform of the
station in the great Metropolis as if it were a modest young train which
had yet to win its spurs, instead of being a tried veteran which had
done its best for many years past to annihilate space and time. But,
after all, it resembled all other tried veterans in this respect.

Generally speaking, engine-drivers are little--far too little--thought
of after a journey is over. Mankind is not prone to be wise or
discriminating, in giving credit to whom credit is due. We "remember"
waiters after having eaten a good dinner, but who, in any sense of the
word, "remembers" the cook? So in like manner we think of railway
porters and guards at the end of our journeys, and talk of their
civility mayhap, but who thinks or talks of the driver and fireman as
they lean on the rails of their iron horse, wet and weary perchance--
smoke and dust and soot begrimed for certain--and calmly watch the
departure of the multitudes whom they have, by the exercise of
consummate coolness, skill, and courage, brought through dangers and
hairbreadth escapes that they neither knew nor dreamed of?

On this particular occasion, however, the tables were turned for once.
The gentlemen in the train hurried to the guard to ask what had caused
the slight shock which they had felt. Joe Turner had been called aside
for a moment by a clerk, so they went direct to John Marrot himself, who
modestly related what had happened in a half apologetic tone, for he did
not feel quite sure that he had done the best in the circumstances. His
admiring audience had no doubt on the point, however.

"You're a brick, John!" exclaimed an enthusiastic commercial traveller