“Steam locomotives would never do something so cowardly!”

“Steam locomotives would never do something so cowardly!” is the climactic line in Lemon’s retelling of a story about Duck and Diesel. In the tense confrontation with the Prince, it turns a children’s railway tale into an accusation: Lemon casts the Prince as the vain, manipulative Diesel and challenges him with Duck’s refusal to accept a cowardly frame-up.

The story behind the expression

Lemon recounts how Diesel, wanting to get rid of Duck, spreads rumours that Duck has been gossiping about the other trains. The locomotives on Sodor Island believe the accusations and turn against Duck. When Duck discovers that he has been framed, he protests that he could never have invented such clever rumours. Lemon presents the episode as a story of false accusation: the supposed source of the gossip is not capable of devising it, while the actual plotter acts against him.

The line in the confrontation

Lemon tells the story while preparing a gun. As he speaks, he fits the silencer onto it, checks the chamber, and points the weapon at the ground. The Prince is drawn into the tale but notices Lemon’s practised movements; when Lemon delivers Duck’s declaration, the gun is pointed at the Prince’s forehead. The expression therefore lands alongside an immediate threat, joining the story’s moral language to the danger in the room.

The Diesel analogy

The Prince asks what Duck’s words mean. Lemon answers that he has realised the Prince is the mean old Diesel, then describes Diesel as nasty and vain, someone who mocks the steam locomotives and acts for his own benefit. In Lemon’s telling, Diesel’s wicked plans are eventually discovered and punished. The analogy makes the railway story a judgment on the Prince, not simply a diversion: Duck’s protest against cowardice supplies the standard against which Lemon condemns him.

Lemon extends the comparison to the Prince’s uncle, whom the Prince had described as awful. He suggests the uncle was more like Duck: a drunk and a no-good, but not cruel or clever enough to invent the schemes attributed to him. The expression thus accompanies a reversal in the Prince’s account of blame, separating personal failings from deliberate cruelty. Its force is sharpened by the contradiction of the scene: Lemon invokes a condemnation of cowardice while holding the silenced gun that makes the Prince unable to move.