How We Got Up the Glenmutchkin Railway and how We Got out of It

“That would hardly do,” replied Bob, “as I intend to be Secretary. After all, what’s the use of thinking about it? Here goes for an extempore Chief”; and the villain wrote down the name of Tavish M’Tavish of Invertavish.

“I say, though,” said I, “we must have a real Highlander on the list. If we go on this way, it will become a Justiciary matter.”

“You’re devilish scrupulous, Gus,” said Bob, who, if left to himself, would have stuck in the names of the heathen gods and goddesses, or borrowed his directors from the Ossianic chronicles, rather than have delayed the prospectus. “Where the mischief are we to find the men? I can think of no others likely to go the whole hog, can you?”

“I don’t know a single Celt in Glasgow except old M’Closkie, the drunken porter at the corner of Jamaica Street.”

“He’s the very man! I suppose, after the manner of his tribe, he will do anything for a pint of whisky. But what shall we call him? Jamaica Street, I fear, will hardly do for a designation.”

“Call him THE M’CLOSKIE. It will be sonorous in the ears of the Saxon! “

“Bravo!” and another Chief was added to the roll of the clans.

“Now,” said Bob, “we must put you down. Recollect, an the management—that is, the allocation-will be intrusted to you. Augustus—you haven’t a middle name, I think?—well, then, suppose we interpolate ‘Reginald’, it has a smack of the Crusades. Augustus Reginald Dunshunner, Esq. of—where, in the name of Munchausen?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. I never had any land beyond the contents of a flower-pot. Stay—I rather think I have a superiority somewhere about Paisley.”

“Just the thing,” cried Bob. “It’s heritable property, and therefore titular. What’s the denomination?”

“St. Mirrens.”

“Beautiful! Dunshunner of St. Mirrens, I give you joy! Had you discovered that a little sooner—and I wonder you did not think of it—we might both of us have had lots of allocations. These are not the times to conceal hereditary distinctions. But now comes the serious work. We must have one or two men of known wealth upon the list. The chaff is nothing without a decoy-bird. Now, can’t you help me with a name?”

“In that case,” said I, “the game is up, and the whole scheme exploded. I would as soon undertake to evoke the ghost of Croesus.”

“Dunshunner,” said Bob very seriously, “to be a man of information, you are possessed of marvellous few resources. I am quite ashamed of you. Now listen to me. I have thought deeply upon this subject, and am quite convinced that, with some little trouble, we may secure the co-operation of a most wealthy and influential body—one, too, that is generally supposed to have stood aloof from all speculation of the kind, and whose name would be a tower of strength in the moneyed quarters. I allude,” continued Bob, reaching across for the kettle, “to the great Dissenting Interest.”

“The what?” cried I, aghast.