employment to about eight hundred men and
women. The accounts from every station, and
from each of the departments which supply the
stations, are made up and forwarded to the
central cave every day, together with a return
of the money taken and the corresponding
checks. The familiars of the genii sort and
compare these, and abstract their result into
magic volumes, which show the profit upon each
article sold, down to such trifles as a solitary
Abernethy biscuit, one glass of absinthe, or a
sausage-roll, as well as the net cost of maintenance
at each of the twenty-one stations. The
amount received and the quantity sold, the goods
supplied and the stock remaining at each bar, are
checked against each other — at some bars once
a week, at others once a fortnight—by gauging
and stock-taking sorcerers in the service of the
genii. We are asked to test the system by
putting a question as to what has taken place
at any distant refreshment-room within the
last few days; and, after a pause, demand the
number of rice biscuits sold last week at
Faversham, together with their cost and profit; and
the quantity of macaroons and sandwiches
consumed at the Chatham refreshment-bar in the
same period. Smiling a little at the easy
nature of the task, one of the genii flutters a
few pages of accounts knowingly, and we have
put before us, in the clearest way, the entire
consumption at each of the bars selected, and
every item of the stock left last Saturday, down
to an eighth of a bottle of liqueur. "Another
plan we adopt," continued the genii, "to guard
ourselves against fraud and carelessness, and to
see that each bar is properly worked, is to
watch narrowly the surplusage column in the
weekly returns, and occasionally to move the
persons in charge. You see, in all our calculations
we allow a certain per-centage over, for
what is called waste. Our allowance is, moreover,
so liberal as to make a sensible addition
to the week's returns. Thus, every night,
when the cash is taken, there should be a few
pence or a few shillings more than the collective
amount of the goods sold. Of course, if
the young ladies are careless or wasteful, this
sum decreases, and there is no better test of
management than that the surplusage column
should mount up steadily, and bear a fair
proportion to the goods sold and money received.
You'll see by this abstract that we mark a
decrease in surplusage directly it occurs. If
this diminution happens only once, we say
nothing about it. If for two weeks running
there is little or no surplusage, we guess there
is something wrong. Not necessarily dishonesty,
you understand, but lax management.
What do we do? Move the person in charge
to another station at which the returns are
regular; sending the chief of this to control
the bar at which the decreases take place.
If we find the bar-returns to change places,
the decreasing one to go suddenly up, and the
one hitherto regular to fluctuate and fall, we
need no further evidence, but are satisfied that
the person we have trusted is a bad manager.
Sometimes, moreover, a new eye will detect
little faults of detail which have escaped the
notice of the person always there, and will make
suggestions which it may be important to carry
out. There's no magic, I do assure you, either
about our mode of management or our success;
it's mere routine and figures; but routine and
figures properly applied. We claim to have
revolutionised the system of railway refreshment,
simply because we commenced on a proper
principle, and brought experience and capital
into the business. We can make terms, where
others have to accept them" (I thought of poor
Robert, and the tradesmen who were "very
good" to him), "and our departments are quite
independent of each other, after the plan
adopted in the large Manchester warehouses.
Their heads, the chief butcher, or cellarman,
or pastry-cook, sell their wares to the various
bars, and keep as strict a profit-and-loss account
on everything they part with, or buy, as if
they were dealing with the outside public.
They're all anxious, you see, to make the
department they're responsible for remunerative
for their own credit's sake; and while
one desires to secure the largest profit, the
other cries out the instant the charge is too
high. If the manageress of one of our refreshment-
bars, for example, found she was paying
our butcher a higher price for meat than
she could procure it for elsewhere, she would
naturally object to have the profits of her
bar reduced; and her complaint would meet
with immediate attention, probably from my
partner or myself. We're our own wine and cigar
importers, bakers, confectioners, pastrycooks,
and grocers, and we have, besides, extensive
stores of glass, earthenware, and other requirements
for our business. Our buns and cakes are
sent down fresh every day to all the stations on
the line from our bakery at Blackfriars, and those
left on hand are sent back every night. Sweets
are despatched in the same way from our
confectionery factory at Ludgate. Then, again, our
people have every facility for cooking and serving
well. The stipulation with the secretary of this
railway, that we should have sufficient room
allotted to us for cellarage and kitchens, has
been, I think you'll say when you've been over
them, faithfully carried out. We claim to be
the first people who made cheap wine popular,
and we now give a claret, at a shilling the pint
bottle, which is good enough for anybody's
drinking. Our meat comes direct from
Scotland, and we could show you some figures
connected with the cost price of Aberdeen beef,
which, I think, would make you admit the recent
outcry against butchers' prices has been exaggerated.
We have three Italian confectioners
constantly employed. Our young ladies are many
of them better paid than they would be as
governesses or ladies'-maids, from both of which
classes we are largely supplied. They are all
provided with homes and looked after by us. Our
cooking apparatus is of the most recent
construction; our men-cooks are skilful and
experienced; and" (here the genii lowered his voice