"
"I don't know so much about that. There are four of us English foremen, and
between seven and eight hundred native fitters, smiths, carpenters, painters,
and such like."
"And they are full of the Congress, of course?"
"Never hear a word of it from year's end to year's end, and I speak the talk
too. But I wanted to ask how things are going on at home--old Tyler and Brown
and the rest?"
"We will speak of them presently, but your account of the indifference of your
men surprises me almost as much as your own. I fear you are a backslider from
the good old doctrine, Edwards." Pagett spoke as one who mourned the death of
a near relative.
"Not a bit, Sir, but I should be if I took up with a parcel of baboos,
pleaders, and schoolboys, as never did a day's work in their lives, and
couldn't if they tried. And if you was to poll us English railway men,
mechanics, tradespeople, and the like of that all up and down the country from
Peshawur to Calcutta, you would find us mostly in a tale together. And yet
you'd know we're the same English you pay some respect to at home at 'lection
time, and we have the pull o' knowing something about it."
"This is very curious, but you will let me come and see you, and perhaps you
will kindly show me the railway works, and we will talk things over at
leisure.
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