Meanwhile Joe Turner saw that all the other passengers were got carefully out of the train. He was particularly polite in his attentions, however, to the “late passenger!”
“You have forgot, ma’am,” he said politely, “to give up your dog-ticket.”
“Dog-ticket!” exclaimed the lady, blushing; “what do you mean? I have no dog-ticket.”
“Not for the little poodle dog, ma’am, that you carry under your shawl?”
The lady blushed still deeper as she admitted that she had no ticket for the dog, but said that she was quite willing to pay for it.
This having been done, her curiosity got the better of her shame at having been “caught,” and she asked—
“How did you know I had a dog with me, guard?”
“Ah, ma’am,” replied Joe with a smile, “we’ve got a remarkably sharp-sighted police force on our line, besides the telegraph. We find the telegraph very useful, I assure you, at times. The gentlemen who were removed in handcuffs a few minutes ago were also stopped in their little game by the telegraph, ma’am.”
The guard turned away to attend to some one else, and the late passenger, blushing a still deeper scarlet to find that she was classed with criminals, hurried away to reflect, it is to be hoped, on the fact that dishonesty has no variety in character—only in degree.
When the guard left the late passenger, he found that his assistance was required to get Mrs Durby and her belongings out of the railway carriage and into a cab.