Country Cousin. If you please, I want a first-class ticket to Bayswater.
Ticket Clerk (explosively). Single or return? Look sharp! You're not the only person in London!
Country Cousin (humbly). Single, please.
[The ticket and change are slapped down unceremoniously, and Country Cousin is shoved on from behind by an impatient City man. Rushes precipitately down brass-bound steps, and presents his ticket to be snipped.
Snipper (inspecting ticket). Queen's Road, Bayswater? Wrong side! Go up the stairs, and turn to the right. Look sharp! There's a train just coming in!
[Country Cousin, with a deepened sense of humiliation and bewilderment, hurries upstairs, turns to the right, and reaches entrance to platform just in time to have gate slammed in his face. The train being gone, gate is re-opened, and the necessary snipping performed on his ticket.
Country Cousin (to Snipper, politely). If you please—will the next train take me to Queen's Road, Bayswater?
Saturnine Official. Can't tell you till the train comes.
[Country Cousin paces the platform in moody silence, and wishes he had taken a cab. Enter train, rushing madly along.