You know they'll be a good while yet over on the other side.'
'Oh, very well.' Preen Chand followed Stephenson as the stationmaster forced his way through the crowd, which had thinned more while they argued.
'Mr. Trevithickl' Stephenson called, and then again, louder, 'Mr.
Trevithickl' A pale, almost consumptivelooking young man standing by the traveling stem engine lifted his head inquiringly. 'Mr. Trevithick, this here is Mr. Preen Chand, the elephant driver you wanted to see.'
'Ahl' The engine handler broke oft the conversation he was having, came hurrying over to pump Preen Chand's hand. 'They spoke very well of you in Cairo, sir, when I was arranging permits to travel this line, said your Caesar and Hannibal were first-rate beasts. I see they were right; you're here a good deal ahead of schedule.' Like any railroad man, Trevithick always had a watch handy.
'Thank you so very much, sir.' Preen Chand saw he was going to have to work to dislike this man; Trevithick was perfectly sincere.
Looking into his intense blue eyes, Preen Chand suspected he was one of those people who always said just what they thought because it never occurred to them to do anything else.
'Call me Richard, couldn't stand going as Dick Trevithick, you know. And you're Preen? Shouldn't be any stuffiness between folks in the same line of work.'
Again Preen Chand realized that he meant it. As gently as he could, he said, 'Richard, it is a line of work that you and that, thing', he could not make himself call it the Iron Elephant, 'are trying to get me out of.'
'Am I? How?' Trevithick's surprise was genuine, which in turn surplised Preen Chand. 'Who better to work the railroads under, than someone long familiar with them as an elephant driver?
Everything about them will be the same, except for what pulls the waggons.'
'And, Richard, with all respect, everything about iron and wood is the same, except when I need to start a fire. I've spent a lifetime learning to care for elephants; what good will that do me in dealing with your boiler there?'
'A child could manage the throttle. And we have a whole new kind of boiler in the Iron Elephant, with tubes passing through it to heat the water more effectively. And the cylinders are almost horizontal; they work much betoer than the old vertical design did.' Trevithick glowed with enthusiasm, and plainly wanted Preen Chand to catch fire too. 'Why, on level ground, with the extra power the new system gives, we can do close to thirty miles an hour, practically flying along the ground!'
Had Stephenson named the figure, Preen Chand would have cal ed him a liar on the spot. He did not think Trevithick a man given to exaggeration, though. Thirty miles an hour He tried to imagine what the wind would be like, whipping in his face: as if he were on a madly galloping racehorse, but for some long time, not just the few minutes the beast would take to tire.
'How about that, Preen?' Stephenson put in, nudging him in the ribs.
'Only way you'd get Caesar and Hannibal moving that fast'd be to drop
'em off a roof.'
Preen Chand grunted. He thought of the stationmaster's boasts about how much he could cut back his operation. The elephant driver smiled sardonically at Trevithick's naivete. Everything would be the same, would it?
'Thirty miles an hour is a marvelous speed, Richard; it is most marvelous indeed. But that is unloaded, I take it. What can your steam engine', he would not call it the Iron Elephant, not even for politeness' sake, 'do pul ing a load of, say, fifty tons?'
'Tel him, Mr. Trevithick.' This time the engine handler was the recipient of Stephenson's conspiratorial elbow.
He did not seem to notice. The gleam in his eyes turned inward as he calculated. At last he said, 'That is a great deal of weight. Does your team real y pul so much?' For the first time, his voice held a trace of doubt.
'They can, yes,' Preen Chand said proudly.
'Truth to tell, I hate to wonder if the machinery could stand it.
But I think we should be able to do something on the order of three miles an hour, not counting stops for water or for any breakdowns that might happen.'
'Three miles an hour? Is that all?' George Stephenson sounded more betrayed than disappoinoed.
'If that.' Trevithick looked amused. 'Now you see why I tend to put more stress on the engine's top speed.'
Preen Chand, though, was still impressed, and worried. His beloved elephants were faster, but they were only flesh and blood. They had to rest, where the steam engine could go on and on and on. And yet, he thought, if I can show everyone how the elephants outdo this stinking contraption'Richard, load your train up, and I will load mine, and I will race you from here to Carthage.'
'A race, eh?' Trevithick's bright eyes glowed. 'How far is this Carthage place from here?'
'Fifty-three miles, a-tiny bit south of west. The railroad ends soon after it.'
'Hmm.' Preen Chand watched the engine handler go into that near-tranoe of conoentration again. When he emerged from it, he gave the elephant driver a respectful look. 'That will be a very close thing, Preen. You know how embarrassing, and I mean financially as well as in the sense of a blow to my pride, it would be for me to lose?'
Preen Chand returned a bland shrug. 'You've come all this way from Plymouth, Richard, to show off your ironmongery. How embarrassing would it be for word to get out that you refused a challenge from your competition?'
Trevithick laughed out loud. 'You misunderstand me. I have no intention of refusing. When shall we start?'
'Tomorrow morning?'
