e tells them. The space occupied by the
convergent rails seems to be sufficient for a large farm. And these
rails always run one into another with sloping points, and cross
passages, and mysterious meandering sidings, till it seems to the
thoughtful stranger to be impossible that the best trained engine
should know its own line. Here and there and around there is ever a
wilderness of waggons, some loaded, some empty, some smoking with
close-packed oxen, and others furlongs in length black with coals,
which look as though they had been stranded there by chance, and were
never destined to get again into the right path of traffic. Not a
minute passes without a train going here or there, some rushing by
without noticing Tenway in the least, crashing through like flashes
of substantial lightning, and others stopping, disgorging and taking
up passengers by the hundreds. Men and women,--especially the men,
for the women knowing their ignorance are generally willing to trust
to the pundits of the place,--look doubtful, uneasy, and bewildered.
But they all do get properly placed and unplaced, so that the
spectator at last acknowledges that over all this apparent chaos
there is presiding a great genius of order. From dusky morn to dark
night, and indeed almost throughout the night, the air is loaded
with a succession of shrieks. The theory goes that each separate
shriek,--if there can be any separation where the sound is so nearly
continuous,--is a separate notice to separate ears of the coming or
going of a separate train. The stranger, as he speculates on these
pandemoniac noises, is able to realise the idea that were they
discontinued the excitement necessary for the minds of the pundits
might be lowered, and that activity might be lessened, and evil
results might follow. But he cannot bring himself to credit that
theory of individual notices.

At Tenway Junction there are half-a-dozen long platforms, on which
men and women and luggage are crowded. On one of these for a while
Ferdinand Lopez walked backwards and forwards as though waiting for
the coming of some especial train. The crowd is ever so great that
a man might be supposed to walk there from morning to night without
exciting special notice. But the pundits are very clever, and have
much experience in men and women. A well-taught pundit, who has
exercised authority for a year or two at such a station as that of
Tenway, will know within a minute of the appearance of ea