Mr. Wainwright on a Monday.  The following Saturday afternoon, before leaving the office, to my great surprise and delight, he presented me with a first-class station to station pass over the railway.  With what pride I showed it to Tom that evening!  Six months later my salary was increased, and the pleasant fact was announced to me by my kindly chief, coupled with the expression of a wish that he and I might long work together.

On the Scottish railways the financial half-years ended, not in June and December, as in other parts of the United Kingdom, but at the end of July and January.  This was for the better equalisation of receipts, taking a month from the fat half-year to the lean, and giving, in exchange, a month from the lean to the fat.  Soon after the first-half-year was concluded and the accounts published, which was in the month of September (my first September with the Glasgow and South-Western), Mr. Wainwright handed to me a large sheet of closely printed figures, giving a detailed analysis and comparison of the accounts of five of the principal English and the three principal Scottish railways in columnar form, with a request that I should take out the figures and compile for printing a similar statement for the past half-year, from the accounts of the eight companies.  I trembled inwardly for I had never yet looked at a railway account, but I took them home, and, as in the case of the Acts of Parliament, found them simpler than I thought; and, with less trouble than I expected, succeeded in accomplishing the task.

Mr. Wainwright was himself a skilful statistician and tested everything he could by the cold logic of figures.  I was soon surprised to find that I too had a taste for statistics and acquired some skill in their compilation.  Up to this I had always imagined that I disliked everything in the shape of arithmetic.  At school I was certainly never fond of it, and since school my acquaintance with figures had been little more than the adding up of long columns in huge books at the half-yearly stocktaking in the stores department at St. Rollox, a thing I detested, and which invariably gave me a headache.  Well pleased was Mr. Wainwright to see that statistics took my fancy.  As general manager he had not much time himself to devote to them, but the office was now well manned and we were able to establish, and keep up, tables, statistics and returns concerning matters of railway working in a way which I have not seen surpassed.  These statistics were of much practical use when considering questions of economy and other matters from day to day.