He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an official
book in which he had to make certain entries, a telegraphic instrument
with its dial face and needles, and the little bell of which he had
spoken. On my trusting that he would excuse the remark that he had been
well educated, and (I hoped I might say without offence) perhaps
educated above that station, he observed that instances of slight
incongruity in such-wise would rarely be found wanting among large
bodies of men; that he had heard it was so in workhouses, in the police
force, even in that last desperate resource, the army; and that he knew
it was so, more or less, in any great railway staff. He had been, when
young (if I could believe it, sitting in that hut; he scarcely could),
a student of natural philosophy, and had attended lectures; but he had
run wild, misused his opportunities, gone down, and never risen again.
He had no complaint to offer about that. He had made his bed, and he
lay upon it. It was far too late to make another.
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