Whenever he ran over his line, which he often did for information and amusement, and for the pleasure of exercising his power, he went in a special car, at break-neck speed, by telegraph, always accompanied by a body of friends and toadies, whom he feasted on the way.  Everybody wanted to see him.  He was as much a lion as if he had been an Emperor or a murderer.  To emerge upon a platform at a way-station, where there were hundreds of country people who had flocked in to witness the exhibition, was his great delight.  He spoke to them familiarly and good-naturedly; transacted his business with a rush; threw the whole village into tumult; waved his hand; and vanished in a cloud of dust.  Such enterprise, such confidence, such strength, such interest in the local prosperities of the line, found their natural result in the absorption of the new bonds.  They were purchased by individuals and municipal corporations.  Freight was diverted from its legitimate channels, and drawn over the road at a loss; but it looked like business.  Passes were scattered in every direction, and the passenger traffic seemed to double at once.  All was bustle, drive, business.  Under a single will, backed by a strong and orderly executive capacity, the dying road seemed to leap into life.  It had not an employe who did not know and take off his hat to the General.  He was a kind of god, to whom they all bowed down; and to be addressed or chaffed by him was an honor to be reported to friends, and borne home with self-gratulations to wives and children.

The General, of course, had moments of superlative happiness.  He never had enjoyed anything more than he enjoyed his railroad.  His notoriety with the common people along the line—­the idea which they cherished that he could do anything he wished to do; that he had only to lift his hand to win gold to himself or to bear it to them—­these were pleasant in themselves; but to have their obeisance witnessed by his city friends and associates, while they discussed his champagne and boned turkey from the abounding hampers which always furnished “the President’s car”—­this was the crown of his pleasure.  He had a pleasure, too, in business.  He never had enough to do, and the railroad which would have loaded down an ordinary man with an ordinary conscience, was only a pleasant diversion to him.  Indeed, he was wont to reiterate, when rallied upon his new enterprise:  “The fact was, I had to do something for my health, you know.”

Still, the General was not what could be called a thoroughly happy man.  He knew the risks he ran on Change.  He had been reminded, by two or three mortifying losses, that the sun did not always shine on Wall street.  He knew that his railroad was a bubble, and that sooner or later it would burst.  Times would change, and, after all, there was nothing that would last like his manufactures.  With a long foresight, he had ordered the funds received from the Prussian sales of the Belcher rifle to be