You let me go! I - "
Here the surprise of your fellow-passengers recalls you to yourself,
and you proceed on your exploration. You overhaul the bags, turning
everything out on to the floor, muttering curses on the whole
railway system of Germany as you do so. Then you feel in your
boots. You make everybody near you stand up to see if they are
sitting upon it, and you go down on your knees and grovel for it
under the seat.
"You didn't throw it out of the window with your sandwiches, did
you?" asks your friend.
"No! Do you think I'm a fool?" you answer, irritably. "What should
I want to do that for?"
On going systematically over yourself for about the twentieth time,
you discover it in your waistcoat pocket, and for the next half-hour
you sit and wonder how you came to miss it on the previous nineteen
occasions.
Meanwhile, during this trying scene, the conduct of the guard has
certainly not tended to allay your anxiety and nervousness. All the
time that you have been looking for your ticket, he has been doing
silly tricks on the step outside, imperilling his life by every
means that experience and ingenuity can suggest.
The train is going at the rate of thirty miles an hour, the express
speed in Germany, and a bridge comes in sight crossing over the
line.
