The voice was high-pitched now, and the rapping of the punch echoed back to us from the station building. Three more collectors joined their colleague and murderously assaulted the car door.
“Hello there! Tickets! It’s the collector! Wake up! Tickets!”
The uproar drowned the mumble in which Rice cursed the unusual length of the train’s halt. An official thrust an arm through the open window and shook me savagely. The others, bellowing angrily, followed his example, and rolled us back and forth on the hard benches. The helmet that had shaded my eyes rolled to the floor. Rice, who had lain down, as he afterward expressed it, “wrong end to,” was caught by the ankle and dragged to the window. Still we slumbered.
Suddenly the uproar subsided.
“What’s this?” cried a sterner voice outside.
I opened my eyes ever so slightly and caught a fleeting glimpse of a Eurasian in the uniform of a station-master.
“Let them alone,” he ordered, “they’ve had too much arrack. No matter if their tickets are not punched at every station.”
The train started with a jerk, the station lights faded, and we sat up simultaneously.
“Worked like a charm,” chuckled James.
“Thought it would,” I answered.