It was in this year (1903) that I first met Charles Dent, the present General Manager of the Great Northern Railway of England.  He had been appointed General Manager of the Great Southern and Western Railway in succession to R. G. Colhoun.  Dent and I often met.  We found we could do good work for our respective companies by reducing wasteful competition and adopting methods of friendly working.  In this we were very successful.  A man of few words, disdaining all unnecessary formalities, but getting quickly at the heart and essence of things, it was always a pleasure to do business with him.

In this year also I enjoyed some variety by way of an inquiry which I made for the Board of Works, concerning certain proposed light railway extensions, called the Ulster and Connaught, and which involved the ticklish task of estimating probable traffic receipts and working expenses—­a task for which the gift of prophecy almost is needed.  To determine, in this uncertain world, the future of a railway in embryo might puzzle the wisest; but, with the confidence of the expert, I faced the problem and, I hope, arrived at conclusions which were at least within a mile of the mark.

In 1904 that fine old railway veteran, Sir Ralph Cusack, resigned his position of Chairman of the Midland and was succeeded by the Honourable Richard Nugent, youngest son of the ninth Earl of Westmeath; Major H. C. Cusack, Sir Ralph’s nephew and son-in-law, becoming Deputy Chairman—­the first (excepting for a few brief months in 1903 when Mr. Nugent occupied the position) the Midland ever had.  With Sir Ralph’s vacation of the chair, autocratic rule on the Midland, which year by year, had steadily been growing less, disappeared entirely and for ever.  Well, Sir Ralph in his long period of office had served the Midland faithfully, with a single eye to its interests, and good wishes followed him in his retirement.  Mr. Nugent was a small man, that is physically, but intellectually was well endowed.  He had scholarly tastes and business ability in pretty equal parts.  Movement and activity he loved, and, as he often told me, preferred a holiday in Manchester or Birmingham to the Riviera or Italian Lakes.  He liked to be occupied, was fond of details, and possessed a lively curiosity.  Sometimes he was thought, as a chairman, to err in the direction of too rigid economy, but on a railway such as the Midland, and in a country such as Ireland, economy was and is an excellent thing, and if he erred, it was on the right side.  Truth, candour, courage and enthusiasm marked his character in a high degree.  Fearless in speech, the art of dissimulation he never learned.  I shall not readily forget a speech he once made at the Railway Companies’ Association in London.  It was on an occasion of great importance, when all the principal companies of the United Kingdom were present.  It was altogether unpremeditated, provoked by other speeches with which he disagreed, and its directness