Needless to say, he was a very active
politician. Perhaps the activity of his politics had something to do
with the frequency of his transformations--for he would always be his
somewhat spectacular self; he would always call his soul his own, and he
would quietly accept a snub from no man.
And now he was a tram-conductor. Things had come to that.
In the old days of the steam trams, where there were only about a score
of tram-conductors and eight miles of line in all the Five Towns, the
profession of tram-conductor had still some individuality in it, and a
conductor was something more than a number. But since the British
Electric Traction Company had invaded the Five Towns, and formed a
subsidiary local company, and constructed dozens of miles of new line,
and electrified everything, and raised prices, and abolished season
tickets, and quickened services, and built hundreds of cars and engaged
hundreds of conductors--since then a tram-conductor had been naught but
an unhuman automaton in a vast machine-like organization. And passengers
no longer had their favourite conductors.
Gossips did not precisely see Thomas Chadwick as an unhuman automaton
for the punching of tickets and the ringing of bells and the ejaculation
of street names.
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