In after life he often wondered what would have happened had he chosen the other. This seeming free choice, is it really free, and if so, how far?
Next day he hired a bicycle (he did not own one, could not afford the time to use it and look after it, he said) and cycled over to the place where the gipsy girl had told him their camp was pitched. He tried every road that led out of the little Scotch village, but could find nothing of the camp. He made inquiries, and the dour highland policeman looked at him with open suspicion.
"Gipsy camp," he repeated, "na, there's nae gipsy camp around here."
So Carstairs went back the way he had come, and in a week was in the train for England. He was hurried out of Scotland, over the moorlands and southwards through the wilderness of little towns that cluster, thick as blackberries (and about the same hue), all about the heart of England. At four o'clock in the morning, he was turned out, bag and baggage, in a great industrial centre, on the middle platform of a vast and gloomy station. By eight o'clock a.m. he had reached his destination.
He got out at the dirty little station with somewhat of the edge taken off his enthusiasm. Leaving his luggage in the cloak-room, he went out and wandered round the town, looking at the smoke stacks and the factories, the squalor and the dirt.
He located the works in the lowest and dirtiest part of the town, and next to the gas-works, as usual. The extent of the buildings and the two towering chimney stacks acted like a tonic on his somewhat jaded spirits. At ten o'clock he went round again and interviewed his new chief, a tall clean-shaven young man of twenty-six, who drew a modest salary of £400 per annum; he was very affable and pleasant, but not in the least impressed by the gravity of the situation.
"Oh, yes! you're the new switchboard attendant. Have you had a look round? No? Oh, go out and stroll round the works, then. Mr Thomson will be in shortly."
Carstairs went out into the engine room and wandered in and out amongst the big engines, till another very young man, in his shirt sleeves, came up and asked him what he wanted.
Carstairs explained.
The young man smiled a pleasant smile, and held out his hand. "I'm the Shift Engineer. My name is Smith. Come on upstairs." He took Carstairs up the switchboard steps, along the gallery, and into a big room at the end. It was very light, with large windows and glass doors, and numerous lights, all burning. Five other young men, very young (the eldest of them not over twenty-two), were lounging around on tables and chairs. All had their coats off, and some their collars as well. One had a piece of flexible wood with a large piece of cardboard fastened across the end; with this instrument he gravely hunted flies, squashing them flat on walls or window panes, remarking "exit," in a mechanical sort of voice at every stroke. A long sloping-topped drawing table occupied the whole length of the room under the windows, another large drawing board was supported on light trestles in another part, an ordinary writing table occupied the centre. Instruments, paper, pencils, ink, technical journals, and pocket books, were scattered about broadcast.