But that was when the trouble started.
It proved very difficult to form a shareholding company. The Ministry of Transport kept changing its mind about becoming a shareholder.
The food co-operatives tried their best to avoid taking fifteen per cent of the shares and only wanted to take ten per cent.
The shares were finally distributed, though not without a few skirmishes.
Gavrilin was sent, for by the province control commission and reprimanded for using his position to exert pressure.
But everything came out all right, and then it was only a question of beginning.
"Well, Comrade Treukhov," said Gavrilin, "get cracking!
Do you think you'll manage?
Well and good.
It's not like buying a donkey."
Treukhov immersed himself in his work.
The great things which he had dreamed of for years had finally arrived.
Estimates were made, a construction programme drawn up, and the materials ordered.
But difficulties arose where they were least expected.
It was found that there were no cement experts in Stargorod, so they had to be brought in from Leningrad.
Gavrilin tried to force the pace, but the plants could not deliver the machinery for eighteen months, even though it was actually needed within a year, at the latest.
A threat to order the machinery from abroad, however, brought about the required effect.
Then there were minor difficulties.
First it was impossible to find shaped iron of the right size, then unseasoned sleepers were received instead of seasoned ones.
The right ones were finally delivered, but Treukhov, who had gone personally to the seasoning plant, rejected sixty per cent of the sleepers.
There were defects in the cast-iron parts, and the timber was damp.
Gavrilin made frequent visits to the building sites in his ancient, wheezing Fiat and had rows with Treukhov. While the terminus and depot were being erected, the citizens of Stargorod merely made jokes.
In the Stargorod Truth the tram story was reported by the "Prince of Denmark", writer of humorous pieces, known to the whole town under the pen name of "Flywheel".
Not less than three times a week, in a long account, Flywheel expressed his irritation at the slowness of the construction.
The newspaper's third column -which used to bound with such sceptical headlines as
"No sign of a club",
"Around the weak points",
"Inspections are needed, but what is the point of shine and long tails?"
"Good and . . . bad",
"What we like and what we don't",
"Deal with the saboteurs of education", and
"It's time to put an end to red tape"-began to present readers with such sunny and encouraging headings at the top of Flywheel's reports as
"How we are living and how we are building",
"Giant will soon start work",
"Modest builder", and so on, in that vein.
Treukhov used to open the newspaper with a shudder and, feeling disgust for the brotherhood of writers, read such cheerful lines about himself as:
. . . I'm climbing over the rafters with the wind whistling in my ears.
Above me is the invisible builder of our powerful tramway, that thin, pug-nosed man in a shabby cap with crossed hammers.
It brings to mind Pushkin's poem: "There he stood, full of great thoughts, on the bank. . . ."
I approach him.
Not a breath of air.
The rafters do not stir.
I ask him: How is the work progressing?
Engineer Treukhov's ugly face brightens up. . . .
He shakes my hand and says:
"Seventy per cent of the target has been reached." [The article ended like this]:
He shakes my hand in farewell. The rafters creak behind me.
Builders scurry to and fro.
Who could forget the feverish activity of the building site or the homely face of our builder?
FLYWHEEL