Once, when he had bought a small model stationary engine and the methylated spirit lamp had by some accident set fire to the carpet, he was found after the conflagration had subsided standing serenely amongst the wreckage. When challenged as to its cause, "I cannot tell a lie," he replied calmly; "I did it with my little gadget." A few months later he and the present Ambassador of Great Britain at Washington had constructed a double line of miniature tracks, which connected all the rooms on the ground floor of the house and considerably interfered with the parlourmaid's duties. It was known to the family as the Great Auckland Railway. Another favourite hobby of the young engineer was to lie on his back and watch the spider spin her web, comparing the results with a railway map of Great Britain. It was seldom that he went to bed without having learnt at least a page of _Bradshaw_ by heart.
Going from strength to strength this apparently dreamy lad had climbed the giddy rungs of fame until, at the outbreak of war, he stood with the ball at his feet and the title of Deputy General Manager of the N.E.R. It was he who had invented the system whereby the handle of the heating apparatus in railway carriages could be turned either to OFF or ON without any consequent infiltration of steam, thereby saving passengers from the peril of death by suffocation. It was he who, thumping the table with an iron fist, had insisted vehemently that caged parrots travelling in the rack should, if capable of speech, be compelled to pay the full fare. It was he who effected one of the greatest economies that the line had ever known by using rock-cakes which had served their term of years in the refreshment-room as a substitute for the keys which hold the metals of the permanent way in their chairs.
In the summer of 1914 he was about to adopt a patent device for connecting the official notices in compartments with gramophones concealed under the seats in such a way that when humourists had by dint of much labour made the customary emendations, such as "IT IS DANGEROUS TO LEAP OUT OF THE WINDOWS," "TO STOP THE RAIN PULL DOWN THE CHAIN" and "TO EAT FIVE PERSONS ONLY," a loud and merry peal of laughter should suddenly hail the completed masterpiece.