And the nearer the minute for starting the more
absorbed he became in the mechanism of the thing, and the more animated was
his explanation of the relative merits of the P.L.M. engine and the
North-Western engine. He was always given up as lost, and yet always
stepped in as the train was on the move, his manner aggravatingly
unruffled, his talk pursuing the quiet tenor of his thought about engines
or about what we should do the week after next.
Now I am different. I have been catching trains all my life, and all my
life I have been afraid I shouldn't catch them. Familiarity with the habits
of trains cannot get rid of a secret conviction that their aim is to give
me the slip if it can be done. No faith in my own watch can affect my
doubts as to the reliability of the watch of the guard or the station clock
or whatever deceitful signal the engine-driver obeys. Moreover, I am
oppressed with the possibilities of delay on the road to the station. They
crowd in on me like the ghosts into the tent of King Richard.
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