"Can you tell me," I inquired of my opposite neighbour, a cheery-faced compatriot—"Can you tell me how soon we get to —— Junction by this train? I am most anxious to catch the evening mail at Calais, and am quite out in my reckonings, owing to an extraordinary delay at ——. I have wasted the night by getting into a stopping train instead of the express."
He looked at me in astonishment. He must have thought me either mad or just awaking from a fit of intoxication—only I flatter myself I did not look as if the latter were the case.
"How soon we get to —— Junction?" he repeated. "Why, my good sir, you left it about three hours ago! It is now eight o'clock. We all got in at the Junction. You were alone, if I mistake not?"—he glanced at one or two of the others, who endorsed his statement. "And very fast asleep you were, and must have been, not to be disturbed by the bustle at the station. And as for catching the evening boat at Calais"—he burst into a loud guffaw—"why, it would be very hard lines to do no better than that! We all hope to cross by the mid-day one."
"Then—what train is this?" I exclaimed, utterly perplexed.
"The express, of course. All of us, excepting yourself, joined it at the Junction," he replied.
"The express?" I repeated. "The express that leaves"—and I named my own town—"at six in the evening?"
"Exactly. You have got into the right train after all," and here came another shout of amusement. "How did you think we had all got in if you had not yet passed the Junction? You had not the pleasure of our company from M——, I take it? M——, which you passed at nine o'clock last night, if my memory is correct."
"Then," I persisted, "this is the double-fast express, which does not stop between M—— and your Junction?"
"Exactly," he repeated; and then, confirmed most probably in his belief that I was mad, or the other thing, he turned to his newspaper, and left me to my extraordinary cogitations.
Had I been dreaming? Impossible! Every sensation, the very taste of the coffee, seemed still present with me—the curious accent of the officials at the mysterious town, I could perfectly recall. I still shivered at the remembrance of the chilly waking in the "Restauration"; I heard again the cackling cough.