answered Mr. Watkin.  Down the line one day, with his officers at a country station, a driver was seen in the very act of transferring from a coal wagon standing on an outlying siding some good big lumps to his tender.  This was pointed out to Mr. Watkin, who only said—­“The d—–­d fool, in broad daylight!” When Mr. Allport learned that I came from Derby, and was the son of an old Midland official, he treated me with marked kindness.  Mr. Oakley came in the year 1880 to Glasgow, where he sat for several days as arbitrator between the Glasgow and South-Western and Caledonian Railway Companies, on a matter concerning the management, working, and maintenance of Kilmarnock Station, of which the companies were joint owners, and I learned for the first time how an arbitration case should be conducted, for Mr. Oakley was an expert at such work.  This experience stood me in good stead, when, not many years later, I was appointed arbitrator in a railway dispute in the North of Ireland.

In the front rank of the railway service I do not remember many beaux.  General managers were men too busy to spend much time upon the study of dress.  But there were exceptions, as there are to every rule, and Sir James Thompson, General Manager, and afterwards Chairman of the Caledonian Railway, was a notable exception.  Often, after attending Clearing House meetings or Parliamentary Committees, have I met him in Piccadilly, Bond Street, or the Burlington Arcade, faultlessly and fashionably attired in the best taste, airing himself, admiring and admired.  We always stopped and talked; of the topics of the day, the weather, what a pleasant place London was, how handsome the women, how well dressed the men.  At the Clearing House we usually sat next each other.  I liked him and I think he liked me.  Do not think he was a beau and nothing more.  No, he was a hard-headed Scotchman, full of ability and work, and as a railway manager stood at the top of the ladder.  Next to him Sir Frederick Harrison, General Manager of the London and North-Western Railway, was, I think, the best dressed railway man.  Both he and Sir James were tall, handsome fellows, and I confess to having admired them, perhaps as much for their good looks and their taste and style, as for their intellectual qualities; and I have often thought that men in high positions would not do amiss to pay some attention to old Polonius’ admonition to his son that, “the apparel oft proclaims the man.”

In the friends I made I was fortunate too.  They included two or three budding lawyers, a young engineer, a banker, a doctor, two embryo hotel managers, an auctioneer, and one or two journalists; and, as I have mentioned before, my artist friend Cynicus.  We were, most of us, friends of each other, met often, and the variety of our pursuits gave zest and interest to our intercourse.  First amongst these friends ranked G. G., one of the young lawyers, or writers, as they are called in Scotland.  He was my closest