A smile crossed the driver’s face at the question.
“You don’t happen to live at Swanstead yourself, sir?” he asked in reply.
“No,” admitted Carrados. “Why?”
“Well, sir, we were always pulled up on Thursday; practically always, you may say. It got to be quite a saying among those who used the train regular; they used to look out for it.”
Carrados’s sightless eyes had the one quality of concealing emotion supremely. “Oh,” he commented softly, “always; and it was quite a saying, was it? And why was it always so on Thursday?”
“It had to do with the early closing, I’m told. The suburban traffic was a bit different. By rights we ought to have been set back two minutes for that day, but I suppose it wasn’t thought worth while to alter us in the time-table, so we most always had to wait outside Three Deep tunnel for a west-bound electric to make good.”
“You were prepared for it then?”
“Yes, sir, I was,” said Hutchins, reddening at some recollection, “and very down about it was one of the jury over that. But, mayhap once in three months, I did get through even on a Thursday, and it’s not for me to question whether things are right or wrong just because they are not what I may expect. The signals are my orders, sir—stop! go on! and it’s for me to obey, as you would a general on the field of battle. What would happen otherwise! It was nonsense what they said about going cautious; and the man who started it was a barber who didn’t know the difference between a ‘distance’ and a ‘stop’ signal down to the minute they gave their verdict. My orders, sir, given me by that signal, was ‘Go right ahead and keep to your running time!’”
Carrados nodded a soothing assent. “That is all, I think,” he remarked.
“All!” exclaimed Hutchins in surprise. “Why, sir, you can’t have got much idea of it yet.”