And in the middle
of the road was a third procession of trams,--tram following tram, each
gorged with passengers, frothing at the step with passengers; not the
lackadaisical trams that I had seen earlier in the afternoon in Crown
Square; a different race of trams, eager and impetuous velocities. We
reached the _Signal_ offices. No crowd of urchins to salute us this
time!
Under the earth was the machine-room of the _Signal_. It reminded me of
the bowels of a ship, so full was it of machinery. One huge machine
clattered slowly, and a folded green thing dropped strangely on to a
little iron table in front of us. Buchanan opened it, and I saw that the
broken leg was in it at length, together with a statement that in the
_Signal's_ opinion the sympathy of every true sportsman would be with
the disabled player. I began to say something to Buchanan, when suddenly
I could not hear my own voice. The great machine, with another behind
us, was working at a fabulous speed and with a fabulous clatter. All
that my startled senses could clearly disentangle was that the blue
arc-lights above us blinked occasionally, and that folded green papers
were snowing down upon the iron table far faster than the eye could
follow them.
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