In a sudden panic she opened her purse, and could not find it.
“Oh, surely I've lost it,” she cried. “Where's the booking office?”
“The booking office?” he said. “D'you mean the news-stand? Here you are.” He picked up the ticket, which she had dropped in her nervousness.
“That's all right,” he said, encouragingly. “This train, over here. I'm one of the crew. I'll see you get there. Don't worry.”
He escorted her through the gate, and found her a seat on the train, beside a stout commuter half buried in parcels.
“Now you stay right here,” he said. “I'll tell you when we get to Jamaica, and show you the Heathwood train.” He smiled genially, and left her.
Judy got out her wet handkerchief and wiped her face. As the train ran through the tunnel, she wished she had been on the inside of the seat, for the dark window would have been useful as a mirror. “He saw me crying,” she kept repeating to herself. The man beside her blanketed himself with a newspaper, and the pile of packages on his knees kept sliding over onto her lap, but she was oblivious. She was thinking of the tall man in blue with the queer cap. How kind he had been. The first real kindness she had met in all that nightmare afternoon.
Presently he came through the car. She could see him far down the aisle, leaning courteously over each seat. At first she thought he was just saying a friendly word to all the passengers. Sure, that's like him, she said to herself: he has a grand way with him. Then she saw that he was punching tickets with a silver clipper. Glory, it's the Guard himself, she thought. I wonder will he speak to me again?
The man beside her thrust an arm out from his mass of bundles and held a large oblong of red-striped cardboard across in front of her face. This reminded Judy of her own ticket, which was so different from her neighbour's that she worried for a moment lest it should not be valid. Here was her friend, bending above her with a smile.
“Everything all right?” he said. “The next stop's Jamaica. That's where you get off. Watch for me at this door, and I'll show you the Heath-wood train.” Click, click: the two tickets were punched, and he went on. Judy shut up her coin purse with a snap, and began to notice the hat worn by the lady in the seat in front.