‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Teach, throwing back a straight shot of whisky and coughing loudly. ‘I’m not so sure that a cross-country railroad isn’t anything more than a dream, and that it isn’t going to stay that way, given the present state of railroad engineering. Maybe in twenty, thirty years’ time. But who can afford to tie up good investment capital for twenty or thirty years?’

‘I suppose you’re making some sense,’ said Wintle sadly.

Collis finished his drink and banged his glass on the bar. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I must be leaving you.’

‘Collis — you can’t go yet,’ said Charles.

‘I have to. I’m sorry. I need a new pair of evening shoes, and my white tie went missing last night. I wouldn’t normally trouble, but I’m supposed to go out with Knickerbocker Jane tonight to see Rodney Mulgrave.’

‘And quite apart from that, you don’t like the way we’re talking about your pet railroad scheme, do you?’ asked Arthur Teach. He kept his eyes on Collis as he lit a small thin cigar, pinched out the match between finger and thumb, and blew smoke from his hairy nostrils.

Collis sighed. ‘Mr Teach, Arthur, I’m not a railroad fanatic. I don’t know a footplate from a funnel. But I do understand simple sense, and simple sense tells me it is well over five thousand miles from New York to San Francisco by sea, including an awkward crossing of the isthmus, while it is only three thousand miles from New York to San Francisco by land. Simple sense tells me many other things, too — such as the certain fact that every sod farmer and miner and cattle owner from Nebraska to California would go down on his knees and welcome a railroad across the breadth of this country as a godsend. A head of kale picked in Utah on Monday could be served up with butter in a New York restaurant by Friday; just as a plough blade cold-cast in Pennsylvania on Friday could be delivered to a Wyoming farmer within the week. You could move soldiers, too, and horses, and they would arrive fresh for battle in half the time. It’s all simple sense, Mr Teach, whether the technical details have been worked out or not.’

Teach tugged at his moustache and then cleared his throat. But he didn’t answer. ‘You still don’t think that it’s feasible?’ asked Collis.