“Start a railway with three hundred pounds of capital!”

“Pshaw, man! you don’t know what you’re talking about—­we’ve a great deal more capital than that.  Have not I told you, seventy times over, that everything a man has—­his coat, his hat, the tumblers he drinks from, nay, his very corporeal existence—­is absolute marketable capital?  What do you call that fourteen-gallon cask, I should like to know?”

“A compound of hoops and staves, containing about a quart and a half of spirits—­you have effectually accounted for the rest.”

“Then it has gone to the fund of profit and loss, that’s all.  Never let me hear you sport those old theories again.  Capital is indestructible, as I am ready to prove to you any day, in half an hour.  But let us sit down seriously to business.  We are rich enough to pay for the advertisements, and that is all we need care for in the meantime.  The public is sure to step in, and bear us out handsomely with the rest.”

“But where in the face of the habitable globe shall the railway be?  England is out of the question, and I hardly know a spot in the Lowlands that is not occupied already.”

“What do you say to a Spanish scheme—­the Alcantara Union?  Hang me if I know whether Alcantara is in Spain or Portugal; but nobody else does, and the one is quite as good as the other.  Or what would you think of the Palermo Railway, with a branch to the sulphur-mines?—­that would be popular in the north—­or the Pyrenees Direct?  They would all go to a premium.”

“I must confess I should prefer a line at home.”

“Well then, why not try the Highlands?  There must be lots of traffic there in the shape of sheep, grouse, and Cockney tourists, not to mention salmon and other etceteras.  Couldn’t we tip them a railway somewhere in the west?”

“There’s Glenmutchkin, for instance—­”

“Capital, my dear fellow!  Glorious!  By Jove, first-rate!” shouted Bob, in an ecstasy of delight.  “There’s a distillery there, you know, and a fishing-village at the foot—­at least, there used to be six years ago, when I was living with the exciseman.  There may be some bother about the population, though.  The last laird shipped every mother’s son of the aboriginal Celts to America; but, after all, that’s not of much consequence.  I see the whole thing!  Unrivalled scenery—­stupendous waterfalls—­herds of black cattle—­spot where Prince Charles Edward met Macgrugar of Glengrugar and his clan!  We could not possibly have lighted on a more promising place.  Hand us over that sheet of paper, like a good fellow, and a pen.  There is no time to be lost, and the sooner we get out the prospectus the better.”

“But, Heaven bless you, Bob, there’s a great deal to be thought of first.  Who are we to get for a provisional committee?”

“That’s very true,” said Bob, musingly.  “We must treat them to some respectable names, that is, good-sounding ones.  I’m afraid there is little chance of our producing a peer to begin with?”