Three days later, in the sombre mahogany offices of Leland McCormick’s attorneys on H Street, eleven men gathered for the drawing up of the articles of the Sierra Pacific Railroad Company. Behind a large desk with a green leather top, on which were spread the company’s papers, sat Mr Frederick Drew, the attorney, in a high starched collar and pince-nez, while beside him sat a scruffy clerk who kept bending forward and scratching his ankle.

In a variety of chairs, in a rough semicircle, sat Collis, Charles, Leland, Theodore, and a young lawyer from San Francisco with peeling sunburn, who represented Andrew Jackson Hunt. There were also five other Sacramento traders in dark frock coats — Edward Willard, Jr., Stanley Montrose, Bryan W. Meadows, Percival Giddings, and John Dunthorpe. There was a great deal of coughing, and taking of snuff, and scratching of nibs. On the window-sill were stacks of sun-yellowed legal papers.

Leland McCormick was appointed president of the Sierra Pacific, while Charles Tucker was named construction chief, Collis Edmonds was treasurer, and Andrew Hunt was secretary. Theodore Jones was formally hired as the new company’s official engineer and surveyor.

Afterwards, the assembled men went across the street to Murphy’s Hotel, where they drank a solemn toast to their enterprise, and Leland made a ponderous speech about the pioneering spirit of those who lived and worked in Northern California. Collis stayed at the end of the bar with a glass of whisky, which he hardly touched. Theodore, his cheeks flushed with success, looked across the room at him and raised his eyebrows in an expression which meant: ‘What’s wrong?’

Collis gave him a quick smile which meant that everything was fine. He couldn’t have told him how much he was thinking of Hannah and Delphine, a few last glimpses of scented memory before the Sierra Pacific Railroad overwhelmed them altogether.

‘Sacramento,’ Leland was saying, ‘as its just reward for this day’s work, will soon be likened to the fabled marketplaces of the Orient, thronged with the busy denizens of two hemispheres, brought here by the great highway of nations upon which we have so confidently embarked.’

He said nothing about his unshakable conviction that, though it might be profitable, the Pacific railroad would never reach any further than Nevada.

Collis looked down at his whisky. Then he picked up the glass and swallowed the drink in one gulp.

Collis was shaving in the bedroom of his apartments on J Street when there was a frantic knocking at the downstairs door. He heard Watkins, the black cleaner, shuffling along the corridor to answer it. The knocking came again, louder and more insistent. Collis pulled down his cheek with his fingertips and carefully shaved his sidewhiskers. The outside door was opened, and he heard voices. He rinsed his hollow-ground razor.