B.'s intellect generally gives way about this point, and he becomes
simply drivelling. He discovers trains that run from Munich to
Heidelberg in fourteen minutes, by way of Venice and Geneva, with
half-an-hour's interval for breakfast at Rome. He rushes up and
down the book in pursuit of demon expresses that arrive at their
destinations forty-seven minutes before they start, and leave again
before they get there. He finds out, all by himself, that the only
way to get from South Germany to Paris is to go to Calais, and then
take the boat to Moscow. Before he has done with the timetable, he
doesn't know whether he is in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, nor
where he wants to get to, nor why he wants to go there.
Then I quietly, but firmly, take the book away from him, and dress
him for going out; and we take our bags and walk to the station, and
tell a porter that, "Please, we want to go to Heidelberg." And the
porter takes us one by each hand, and leads us to a seat and tells
us to sit there and be good, and that, when it is time, he will come
and fetch us and put us in the train; and this he does.
That is my method of finding out how to get from one place to
another. It is not as dignified, perhaps, as B.'s, but it is
simpler and more efficacious.
It is slow work travelling in Germany. The German train does not
hurry or excite itself over its work, and when it stops it likes to
take a rest. When a German train draws up at a station, everybody
gets out and has a walk. The engine-driver and the stoker cross
over and knock at the station-master's door. The station-master
comes out and greets them effusively, and then runs back into the
house to tell his wife that they have come, and she bustles out and
also welcomes them effusively, and the four stand chatting about old
times and friends and the state of the crops. After a while, the
engine-driver, during a pause in the conversation, looks at his
watch, and says he is afraid he must be going, but the station-
master's wife won't hear of it.
"Oh, you must stop and see the children," she says. "They will be
home from school soon, and they'll be so disappointed if they hear
you have been here and gone away again. Lizzie will never forgive
you."
The engine-driver and the stoker laugh, and say that under those
circumstances they suppose they must stop; and they do so.
Meanwhile the booking-clerk has introduced the guard to his sister,
and such a very promising flirtation has been taking place behind
the ticket-office door that it would not be surprising if wedding-
bells were heard in the neighbourhood before long.
