“Beg pardon, sir, but there’s a strange train in the station.”
“Oh!” answers the station-master, surprised, “where did it come from?”
“Don’t know,” replies the man; “it doesn’t seem to know itself.”
“Dear me,” says the station-master, “how very extraordinary! What does it want?”
“Doesn’t seem to want anything particular,” replies the other. “It’s a curious sort of train. Seems to be a bit dotty, if you ask me.”
“Um,” muses the station-master, “it’s a rum go. Well, I suppose we must let it stop here a bit now. We can hardly turn it out a night like this. Oh, let it make itself comfortable in the wood-shed till the morning, and then we will see if we can find its friends.”
At last B. makes the discovery that to get to Heidelberg we must go to Darmstadt and take another train from there. This knowledge gives him renewed hope and strength, and he sets to work afresh—this time, to find trains from Munich to Darmstadt, and from Darmstadt to Heidelberg.
“Here we are,” he cries, after a few minutes’ hunting. “I’ve got it!” (He is of a buoyant disposition.) “This will be it. Leaves Munich 10, gets to Darmstadt 5.25. Leaves Darmstadt for Heidelberg 5.20, gets to—”
“That doesn’t allow us much time for changing, does it?” I remark.
“No,” he replies, growing thoughtful again. “No, that’s awkward. If it were only the other way round, it would be all right, or it would do if our train got there five minutes before its time, and the other one was a little late in starting.”
“Hardly safe to reckon on that,” I suggest; and he agrees with me, and proceeds to look for some more fitable trains.
