Trying to Entertain

Ernest Teucher knew the ultimate tensile strength of every structural plate rolled at the basin works. He knew the weekly coal extraction rate from the northern pits down to the ton. He knew the precise tonnage that crossed the points at Helmarte Central between sunrise and dusk.

He had also known, with identical mathematical certainty, that he was utterly in love with Eleanor Valemont.

That realization, however, had proven far simpler to accept in private than it was to articulate aloud. Standing outside the stone entrance of St. Margaret's Children's Hospital on Thursday afternoon, Ernest discovered that confessing his feelings was considerably more terrifying than securing a national railway charter from the Crown.

He pulled his gold pocket watch from his waistcoat.

Two fifty-seven.

Three minutes early. Acceptable.