"It _will_ be an improvement,"he said," a great improvement.
Stockbridge is a flourishing town, and needs but a more direct
railway communicaion with the metropolis to become an important
centre of commerce. This branch was my own idea. I brought the project
before the board, and have myself superintended the execution of
it up to the present time."

"You are an East Anglian director, I presume?"

"My interest in the company," replied Mr. Dwerringhouse, "is
threefold. I am a director, I am a considerable shareholder, and,
as head of the firm of Dwerrihouse, Dwerrihouse & Craik, I am the
company's principal solicitor."

Loquacious, self-important, full of his pet project, and apparently
unable to talk on any other subject, Mr. Dwerrihouse then went
on to tell of the opposition he had encountered and the obstacles
he had overcome in the cause of the Stockbridge branch. I was
entertained with a multitude of local details and local grievances.
The rapacity of one squire, the impracticability of another, the
indignation of the rector whose glebe was threatened, the culpable
indifference of the Stockbridge townspeople, who could _not_
be brought to see that their most vital interests hinged upon a
junction with the Great East Anglian line; the spite of the local
newspaper, and the unheard-of difficulties attending the Common
question, were each and all laid before me with a circumstantiality
that possessed the deepest interest for my excellent fellow-traveller,
but none whatever for myself. From these, to my despair, he went on
to more intricate matters: to the approximate expenses of construction