oured his
heavy roll, to insure whose lightness every effort had been made by the
baker; the Railway Director called for his boots, which did not shine,
although every effort had been made to polish them. He then took a cab,
and arrived at his destination about a quarter of an hour later than the
time that should have been occupied by the journey; still, the driver
averred stoutly that he had made every effort to get his horse to go.

A large party of friends and colleagues, including several capitalists,
most of whom were great epicures and gluttons, and also dyspeptic and
gouty subjects, whose stomachs and tempers were alike impatient, had
assembled at the house of the Railway Director to dine at 7.30. The
dinner was not announced till 8.15, albeit Messrs. BUBB and GRUBB, with
all the resources of MAGOG'S Coffee-House at command, had made every
effort to insure punctuality.

Hereupon the Railway Director, losing control over his feelings,
indignantly demanded what was the meaning of all this? adding, with an
oath, that he supposed the world to be in a conspiracy against him. To
which one of his guests, a little punchy man, who was wiser than the
rest, replied, "You are quite right; but the reason why the world has
conspired against you is, because you and your association conspire
against the world to deceive and defraud it; for you fix certain hours
in your time-tables, thereby engaging to keep them, and, not keeping
them, pretend that you have only contracted to make every effort to
insure punctuality in keeping them. And this is all the reply you have
to make to the complaints of those whom you have choused. And so, the
world has combined to pay you in your own coin, in order that you may
feel how disagreeable it is to have people, from whom you expect
punctuality, not showing it; but instead of practising it, putting you
off with the excuse that they have made every effort to insure it."

MORAL.

Railway Companies are servants of the public; but if the Director of any
Railway Company were to be treated by his own domestics and tradesfolk
with the same neglect and inattention that he and his fellows treat the
public with, and were to have agreements and bargains made with himself
violated with the like impudence, he would be mightily incensed and
exasperated. And, instead of assuaging, it would only aggravate his
wrath to tell him that every effort had been made to discharge those
obligations to the fulfilment