“The R.T.O. who was here this morning,” I said, “told me to travel by this train.”
“Sorry,” he said. “But you can’t, or if you do you won’t get to B.”
“How am I to get there?” I asked.
“I don’t know that you can.”
“Do you mean,” I said, “that no train ever goes there?”
He considered this and replied cautiously.
“There might be a train to-morrow,” he said, “or next day.”
The prospect was not a pleasant one; but I knew that R.T.O.’s are not infallible. Sometimes they have not the dimmest idea where trains are going. I left the office and wandered about the station until I found the officer in command of the train. He was a colonel, and I was, of course, a little nervous about addressing a colonel. But this colonel had kindly eyes and a sorrowful face. He looked like a man on whom fate had laid an intolerable burden. I threw myself on his mercy.
“Sir,” I said, “I want to go to B. I am ordered to report myself there. I am trying to take my servant with me. What am I to do?”