III
The train stopped momentarily at a station which he thought to be Lichfield. Then (out of his waking dreams) it seemed to him that Lichfield Station had strangely grown in length, and just as the train was drawing out he saw the word "Stafford" in immense white enamelled letters on a blue ground. There was nobody else in the compartment. His heart and stomach in a state of frightful torture, he sprang out of it—not on to the line, but into the corridor (for it was a corridor train) and into the next compartment, where were seated two men.
"Is this the London train?" he demanded, not concealing his terror.
"No, it isn't. It's the Birmingham train," said one of the men fiercely—a sort of a Levite.
"Great heavens!" ejaculated Arthur Cotterill.
"You ought to inquire before you get into a train," said the Levite.
"The fact is," said the other man, who was perhaps a cousin of a Good Samaritan, "the express from Manchester is split up at Knype—one part for London, and the other part for Birmingham."
"I know that," said Arthur Cotterill.
"Ever since I can remember the London part has gone off first."
"Of course," said Arthur; "I've travelled by it lots of times."