we inquired into the cause of this unique
phenomenon, and became acquainted with the
genii.

Before describing our interview, let us recal
the last time it was our fortune to be allowed
behind the scenes at a railway refreshment-bar.
It was in a country town, when we were visiting
the broken-down coachman of an esteemed
friend. The poor old fellow was more than
seventy years of age, rheumatic, and, on his
employer finding him past work, interest was made
with the railway directors, and the post of
purveyor at the station charitably given him.
Every one was glad, for "old Robert" was
well known and popular; and that he should be
now provided for at the cost of the railway
company was matter for general rejoicing. None of
us ever thought of his fitness for the post, nor
of how a man who had so completely outlived his
powers as to be unable to fulfil the easy duties
he had been accustomed to all his life, would
conduct a new business which required special
qualifications and trade knowledge. Neither
myself nor my fellow-townsmen thought of
the railway station as a place at which eating
and drinking was a possibility for ourselves,
or of the ordinary travellers who passed through
Dulby, and lunched or dined at its junction.
These had no claim upon our sympathies,
whereas the kindly face and venerable figure of
old Robert were local institutions; and if by
selling muddy beer, fiery sherry, and stale buns
to strangers, his last days could be made easy,
who would be churlish enough to cavil at his
appointment? The little bar and the comfortless
closet attached to it were, after all, neither
better nor worse than scores of others on the
Great Mudland line. There was no kitchen to
speak of, and Robert's pastry was supplied from
the little shop round the corner (kept by the head
porter's wife), his beer by the local brewer (a
director), his wines and spirits by the leading
wine-merchant (a large shareholder), and his
toffee, barley-sugar, and cigars from the general
dealer in the main street, a Quaker, who was
"very good" to Robert, and employed him on
odd jobs to eke out the slender gains of a railway
refreshment-bar.

Every Wednesday and Saturday the
remaining stock of the pastry-shop was handed
over to Robert, who had it at "stale price."
The buns, and puffs, and sponge-cakes not
required by the town were thus got rid of to
travellers, and good Mrs. Pastry-Cook preserved
her well-earned reputation for selling nothing
but fresh eatables over her counter. The
beer and porter were delivered periodically by
the director's men, who were kind and affable
to old Robert, and did their best to treat
him as if he were a regular customer,
instead of a half-dependent on their master. It
is a curious circumstance, and one I apprehend
to be mainly attributable to this friendship,
that if I, or any other resident, chanced
to look in for a casual glass of ale, that Robert
drew it with his own hands from a distant cask,
and disdained to serve us from the ornamental
handles worked for the travellers' benefit.
Carefully pouring it out, and holding it between
himself and the light with a trembling hand, he
would smile knowingly, as if to say, "as good
ale as ever left Mr. Cochineal's cellars, and in
as good condition as if it were drawn from your
own." I never tasted the "property" malt, but
it looked muddy, and smelt sour, and I once
overheard a big man from the West Riding, who was
swathed in mufflers and top-coats, and who had
rushed in hurriedly while the train stopped,
use highly improper language as he threw his
glass down on the counter with much
wryness of face and violence of action. The wine-
merchant, in his anxiety to do poor Robert
a service, sent to London for "a class of wine
I don't keep in stock, but which is greatly sold
at theatres and places of amusement, where the
demand is large and undiscriminating." Toffee
and barley-sugar were, for some mysterious
reason, the viands most in request at this bar,
and ladies and gentlemen who looked quite old
would munch a lump of either as a relish to a
stale sponge-cake, with an ardour and
perseverance surprising at their age. Cigars were
contraband; and if Robert or his daughter,
yielding to the solicitation of travellers bent
upon violating the by-laws, produced a box
from a secret corner, it was as a hazardous
favour which made criticism impossible.

It was well known that, after all his dealing,
the poor old fellow had hard work to keep body
and soul together, and that if he had not held his
place at an almost nominal rent, and been
leniently dealt with by his friendly creditors, he
would have been speedily sold up. The custom
was all forced, and the ordinary principles
of commerce, the buying in the best and
cheapest market, and the gaining a connexion by
the excellence of the articles sold, were not
merely impossible, but would have been laughed
at as out of place and absurd, had any theorist
suggested them to Robert or his masters. To be
sure, the travellers by railway were not the only
sufferers from the system. The directors and
shareholders lost money by letting eligible
premises at a nominal rent; Robert lost custom
through the inferiority of his goods and the
necessary exorbitance of his charges; and the
people he dealt with missed a profitable channel
for their several wares through treating their
railway customers as serfs bound hand and foot
to those with whom they had to deal.

Looking back with the light afforded me by
the genii, I see that the system was radically
and inherently rotten; that charity to Robert
meant cruelty to the public, and that the
results were painful to many, and unsatisfactory
to all. But, while visiting my old friend's
servant, it never occurred to me that there
was any connexion between the manner of
his appointment and the miserably unsatisfactory
condition of railway refreshment-bars
generally. So I listened to his request that
I would interest myself with the directors—
who were looked up to by Robert much as a
devout Hindoo might regard Bhudda or Vishnu