That colonel looked at me with a slow, mournful smile.
“This train,” he said,“isn’t supposed to go to B. You can’t expect me to take it there just to suit you?”
He waved his hand towards the train. It was enormously long. Already several hundred men were crowding into it. I could not expect to have the whole thing diverted from its proper course for my sake. I stood silent, looking as forlorn and helpless as I could. My one hope, I felt, lay in an appeal to that colonel’s sense of pity.
“We shall pass through T. to-morrow morning about 6 o’clock,” he said.
That did not help me much. I had never heard of T. before. But something in the colonel’s tone encouraged me. I looked up and hoped that there were tears in my eyes.
“T.,” said the colonel, “is quite close to B. In fact it is really part of B., a sort of suburb.”
That seemed to me good enough.
“Take me there,” I said, “and I’ll manage to get a taxi or something.”
“But,” said the colonel,“my train does not stop at T. We simply pass through the station. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll slow down as we go through. You be ready to jump out. Tell your servant to fling out your valise and jump after it. You won’t have much time, for the platform isn’t very long, but if you’re ready and don’t hesitate you’ll be all right.”
I babbled words of gratitude. The prospect of a leap from a moving train at 6 a.m. was exhilarating. I might hope that I should find my servant and my luggage rolling over me on the platform when I reached it. Then all would be well. The colonel, moved to further kindness by my gratitude, invited me to travel in a coach which was specially reserved for his use.