locality, even although they
were personal strangers to him.

Very various are the feelings which actuate the directors and
shareholders of different railways at these half-yearly gatherings.
Doubtless some directors go to the place of meeting with the feelings of
men who go to execution, and the shareholders go with the feelings of
executioners, if not worse; while other directors and shareholders
unquestionably go to hold something like a feast of reason and a flow of
soul.

The half-yearly meeting we write of was imbued with the latter spirit.
Wisdom and conscientious care had steered the ship and swayed the
councils of the Grand National Trunk Railway, so that things were in
what the captain called a highly flourishing condition. One consequence
was, that the directors wore no defensive armour, and the shareholders
came to the ground without offensive weapons.

Sir Cummit Strong having taken the chair, the secretary read the
advertisement convening the meeting.

The chairman, who was a tall, broad-browed, and large-mouthed man, just
such an one as might be expected to become a railway king, then rose,
and, after making a few preliminary observations in reference to the
report, which was assumed to have been read, moved, "that the said
report and statement of accounts be received and adopted."

"He-ar, he-ar!" exclaimed a big vulgar man, with an oily fat face and a
strong voice, who was a confirmed toady.

"I am quite sure," the chairman continued, "that I have the sympathy of
all in this meeting when I say that the half-year which has just come to
a close has been one of almost unmixed success--"

"He-ar, he-ar!" from the toady.

"And," continued the chairman, with pointed emphasis, and a glance at
the toady, which was meant to indicate that he had put in his oar too
soon, but which the toady construed into a look of gratitude--"_and_ of
very great satisfaction to those whom you have appointed to the
conducting of your affairs."

"He-ar, he-ar!"

Captain Lee, who sat immediately behind the toady and felt his fingers
and toes tingling, lost a good deal of what followed, in consequence of
falling into a speculative reverie, as to what might be the legal
consequences, if he were to put his own hat on the toady's head, and
crush it down over his eyes and mouth.

"Gentlemen," continued the chairman, "there are three points on which we
have reason to congratulate ourselves to-day, namely, the safety, the