with the registered respirator, and all their other embellishments.
And now, the human locomotives, creased as to their countenances
and purblind as to their eyes, would swarm forth in a heap,
addressing themselves to the mysterious urns and the much-injured
women; while the iron locomotives, dripping fire and water, shed
their steam about plentifully, making the dull oxen in their cages,
with heads depressed, and foam hanging from their mouths as their
red looks glanced fearfully at the surrounding terrors, seem as
though they had been drinking at half-frozen waters and were hung
with icicles. Through the same steam would be caught glimpses of
their fellow-travellers, the sheep, getting their white kid faces
together, away from the bars, and stuffing the interstices with
trembling wool. Also, down among the wheels, of the man with the
sledge-hammer, ringing the axles of the fast night-train; against
whom the oxen have a misgiving that he is the man with the pole-axe
who is to come by-and-by, and so the nearest of them try to get
back, and get a purchase for a thrust at him through the bars.
Suddenly, the bell would ring, the steam would stop with one hiss
and a yell, the chemists on the beanstalks would be busy, the
avenging Furies would bestir themselves, the fast night-train would
melt from eye and ear, the other trains going their ways more
slowly would be heard faintly rattling in the distance like old-
fashioned watches running down, the sauce-bottle and cheap music
retired from view, even the bedstead went to bed, and there was no
such visible thing as the Station to vex the cool wind in its
blowing, or perhaps the autumn lightning, as it found out the iron
rails.

The infection of the Station was this:- When it was in its raving
state, the Apprentices found it impossible to be there, without