and nobly over the smoke and shadows, through stark, grimy cold little
market-places, tilting away in a rush past cinemas and shops down to the
hollow where the collieries are, then up again, past a little rural
church, under the ash trees, on in a rush to the terminus, the last
little ugly place of industry, the cold little town that shivers on the
edge of the wild, gloomy country beyond. There the green and creamy
coloured tram-car seems to pause and purr with curious satisfaction. But
in a few minutes--the clock on the turret of the Co-operative Wholesale
Society's Shops gives the time--away it starts once more on the
adventure. Again there are the reckless swoops downhill, bouncing the
loops: again the chilly wait in the hill-top market-place: again the
breathless slithering round the precipitous drop under the church: again
the patient halts at the loops, waiting for the outcoming car: so on and
on, for two long hours, till at last the city looms beyond the fat
gas-works, the narrow factories draw near, we are in the sordid streets
of the great town, once more we sidle to a standstill at our terminus,
abashed by the great crimson and cream-coloured city cars, but still
perky, jaunty, somewhat dare-devil, green as a jaunty sprig of parsley
out of a black colliery garden.

To ride on these cars is always an adventure. Since we are in war-time,
the drivers are men unfit for active service: cripples and hunchbacks.
So they have the spirit of the devil in them. The ride becomes a
steeple-chase. Hurray! we have leapt in a clear jump over the canal
bridges--now for the four-lane corner. With a shriek and a trail of
sparks we are clear again. To be sure, a tram often leaps the rails--but
what matter! It sits in a ditch till other trams come to haul it out. It
is quite common for a car, packed with one solid mass of living people,
to come to a dead halt in the midst of unbroken blackness, the heart of
nowhere on a dark night, and for the driver and the girl conductor to