David uses the telephone
in the cow porter’s tail
‘I haven’t got my ticket yet,’ said David.
‘Of course not. You don’t know where you’re going yet,’ said she. ‘Travellers by the Anywhere Express take their tickets when they’ve got there. Otherwise you might take a ticket say for France, and find yourself at Fiji, and the ticket wouldn’t be any use.’
‘Is the Anywhere Express likely to go abroad this time?’ asked David, who would have enjoyed that.
‘Nothing’s likely with the Anywhere Express. It never goes where you expect it to. It’s the unlikeliest thing that ever happened. But it always goes to lots of somewheres, which is why it’s the Anywhere. You see it takes hundreds of somewheres to make an Anywhere.’
‘Does it go every night?’ asked David.
‘It goes every day and every night,’ said the cow. ‘But it only goes from here when it has got here. I should think it was five or six years since it was here last. I saw it once when I was a calf.’
‘Then shan’t I get back here for five or six years?’ asked he.
‘Round about that, I should say. Here we are. It’s begun to whistle softly. You’ll take all your bits of things in the carriage with you, I suppose, and then you’ll have them handy, in case of being hungry or if it rains, or there’s a cricket match. Which glass do you go, dearie?’