The place, the people, their surroundings, everything was so altogether different to the vague something I had anticipated, that, like the creature of moods I was, I seemed, all at once, to have passed from a world of fact into a world of dream. It was like one in a dream I answered,--
"I have come to be the Infant Roscius."
Not unnaturally the lady who was washing the potatoes failed to understand.
"What's that?" she demanded.
I repeated my assertion.
"I have come to be the Infant Roscius."
Other of the grown-ups roused themselves to stare at me.
"What's she talking about?" inquired a second woman, who had a baby at her breast.
An elderly man, who was perched on the edge of the platform smoking a pipe, hazarded an explanation.
"She's after tickets; that's what it is she wants."