"Yes," they answered, "3.5 in the afternoon; the 3.10 is a night
train. Don't you see it's printed in thick type? All the trains
between six in the evening and six in the morning are printed in fat
figures, and the day trains in thin. You have got plenty of time.
Look around after supper."
I do believe I am the most unfortunate man at a time-table that ever
was born. I do not think it can be stupidity; for if it were mere
stupidity, I should occasionally, now and then when I was feeling
well, not make a mistake. It must be fate.
If there is one train out of forty that goes on "Saturdays only" to
some place I want to get to, that is the train I select to travel by
on a Friday. On Saturday morning I get up at six, swallow a hasty
breakfast, and rush off to catch a return train that goes on every
day in the week "except Saturdays."
I go to London, Brighton and South Coast Railway-stations and
clamour for South-Eastern trains. On Bank Holidays I forget it is
Bank Holiday, and go and sit on draughty platforms for hours,
waiting for trains that do not run on Bank Holidays.
To add to my misfortunes, I am the miserable possessor of a demon
time-table that I cannot get rid of, a Bradshaw for August, 1887.
Regularly, on the first of each month, I buy and bring home with me
a new Bradshaw and a new A.B.C. What becomes of them after the
second of the month, I do not know. After the second of the month,
I never see either of them again. What their fate is, I can only
guess. In their place is left, to mislead me, this wretched old
1887 corpse.
For three years I have been trying to escape from it, but it will
not leave me.
I have thrown it out of the window, and it has fallen on people's
heads, and those people have picked it up and smoothed it out, and
brought it back to the house, and members of my family - "friends"
they call themselves - people of my own flesh and blood - have thanked
them and taken it in again!
I have kicked it into a dozen pieces, and kicked the pieces all the
way downstairs and out into the garden, and persons - persons, mind
you, who will not sew a button on the back of my shirt to save me
from madness - have collected the pieces and stitched them carefully
together, and made the book look as good as new, and put it back in
my study!
It has acquired the secret of perpetual youth, has this time-table.
Other time-tables that I buy become dissipated-looking wrecks in
about a week. This book looks as fresh and new and clean as it did
on the day when it first lured me into purchasing it. There is
nothing about its appearance to suggest to the casual observer that
it is not this month's Bradshaw. Its evident aim and object in life
is to deceive people into the idea that it is this month's Bradshaw.
It is undermining my moral character, this book is. It is
responsible for at least ten per cent. of the bad language that I
use every year. It leads me into drink and gambling. I am
continually finding myself with some three or four hours to wait at
dismal provincial railway stations. I read all the advertisements
on both platforms, and then I get wild and reckless, and plunge into
the railway hotel and play billiards with the landlord for threes of
Scotch.
I intend to have that Bradshaw put into my coffin with me when I am
buried, so that I can show it to the recording angel and explain
matters. I expect to obtain a discount of at least five-and-twenty
per cent. off my bill of crimes for that Bradshaw.
The 3.10 train in the morning was, of course, too late for us. It
would not get us to Ober-Ammergau until about 9 a.m. There was a
train leaving at 7.30 (I let B. find out this) by which we might
reach the village some time during the night, if only we could get a
conveyance from Oberau, the nearest railway-station. Accordingly,
we telegraphed to Cook's agent, who was at Ober-Ammergau (we all of
us sneer at Mr. Cook and Mr. Gaze, and such-like gentlemen, who
kindly conduct travellers that cannot conduct themselves properly,
when we are at home; but I notice most of us appeal, on the quiet,
to one or the other of them the moment we want to move abroad), to
try and send a carriage to meet us by that train; and then went to
an hotel, and turned into bed until it was time to start.
We had another grand railway-ride from Munich to Oberau. We passed
by the beautiful lake of Starnberg just as the sun was setting and
gilding with gold the little villages and pleasant villas that lie
around its shores. It was in the lake of Starnberg, near the lordly
pleasure-house that he had built for himself in that fair vale, that
poor mad Ludwig, the late King of Bavaria, drowned himself. Poor
King! Fate gave him everything calculated to make a man happy,
excepting one thing, and that was the power of being happy. Fate
has a mania for striking balances. I knew a little shoeblack once
who used to follow his profession at the corner of Westminster
Bridge. Fate gave him an average of sixpence a day to live upon and
provide himself with luxuries; but she also gave him a power of
enjoying that kept him jolly all day long.
