’I’ve told the driver not to spare his coal but to take you into Bedford within five minutes after the arrival of the express.  He says he thinks that he can do it.’

The driver leaned over his engine, rubbing his hands with the usual oily rag.  He was a short, wiry man with grey hair and a grizzled moustache, with about him that bearing of semi-humorous, frank-faced resolution which one notes about engine-drivers as a class.

’We ought to do it, the gradients are against us, but it’s a clear night and there’s no wind.  The only thing that will stop us will be if there’s any shunting on the road, or any luggage trains; of course, if we are blocked, we are blocked, but the Inspector says he’ll clear the way for us.’

‘Yes,’ said the Inspector, ’I’ll clear the way.  I’ve wired down the road already.’

Atherton broke in.

’Driver, if you get us into Bedford within five minutes of the arrival of the mail there’ll be a five-pound note to divide between your mate and you.’

The driver grinned.

’We’ll get you there in time, sir, if we have to go clear through the shunters.  It isn’t often we get a chance of a five-pound note for a run to Bedford, and we’ll do our best to earn it.’

The fireman waved his hand in the rear.

‘That’s right, sir!’ he cried.  ’We’ll have to trouble you for that five-pound note.’

So soon as we were clear of the station it began to seem probable that, as the fireman put it, Atherton would be ‘troubled.’  Journeying in a train which consists of a single carriage attached to an engine which is flying at topmost speed is a very different business from being an occupant of an ordinary train which is travelling at ordinary express rates.  I had discovered that for myself before.  That night it was impressed on me more than ever.  A tyro—­or even a nervous ’season’—­might have been excused for expecting at every moment we were going to be derailed.  It was hard to believe that the carriage had any springs,—­it rocked and swung, and jogged and jolted.  Of smooth travelling had we none.  Talking was out of the question;—­and for that, I, personally, was grateful.  Quite apart from the difficulty we experienced in keeping our seats—­and when every moment our position was being altered and we were jerked backwards and forwards up and down, this way and that, that was a business which required care,—­the noise was deafening.  It was as though we were being pursued by a legion of shrieking, bellowing, raging demons.

‘George!’ shrieked Atherton, ’he does mean to earn that fiver.  I hope I’ll be alive to pay it him!’

He was only at the other end of the carriage, but though I could see by the distortion of his visage that he was shouting at the top of his voice,—­and he has a voice,—­I only caught here and there a word or two of what he was saying.  I had to make sense of the whole.