"Won't you come in--and wait for Mr. Jenney?" she asked.

He gazed down into her face, searchingly, and took her hand.

"Good night," he said; "Mr. Jenney is not far behind. I think--I think I
should like the walk."

CHAPTER XX

MR. CREWE: AN APPRECIATION (1)

It is given to some rare mortals--with whom fame precedes grey hairs or
baldness to read, while still on the rising tide of their efforts, that
portion of their lives which has already been inscribed on the scroll of
history--or something like it. Mr. Crewe in kilts at five; and (prophetic
picture!) with a train of cars which--so the family tradition runs--was
afterwards demolished; Mr. Crewe at fourteen, in delicate health; this
picture was taken abroad, with a long-suffering tutor who could speak
feelingly, if he would, of embryo geniuses. Even at this early period
Humphrey Crewe's thirst for knowledge was insatiable: he cared little,
the biography tells us, for galleries and churches and ruins, but his
comments upon foreign methods of doing business were astonishingly
precocious. He recommended to amazed clerks in provincial banks the use
of cheques, ridiculed to speechless station-masters the side-entrance
railway carriage with its want of room, and the size of the goods trucks.
He is said to have been the first to suggest that soda-water fountains
might be run at a large profit in London.

In college, in addition to keeping up his classical courses, he found
time to make an exhaustive study of the railroads of the United States,
embodying these ideas in a pamphlet published shortly after graduation.
This pamphlet is now, unfortunately, very rare, but the anonymous
biographer managed to get one and quote from it. If Mr. Crewe's
suggestions had been carried out, seventy-five per cent of the railroad
accidents might have been eliminated. Thorough was his watchword even
then. And even at that period he foresaw, with the prophecy of genius,
the days of single-track congestion.

His efforts to improve Leith and the State in general, to ameliorate the
condition of his neighbours, were fittingly and delicately dwelt upon. A
desire to take upon himself the burden of citizenship led--as we know--to
further self-denial. He felt called upon to go to the Legislature--and
this is what he saw:--(Mr. Crewe is quoted here at length in an
admirable, concise, and hair-raising statement given in an interview to
his biographer. But we have been with him, and know w