“Three classes, you know, my good friend,” the clerk explained; “first, second, and third. The first is the dearest, the second middling, and the third the cheapest.”
“Then the third won’t do for us, nor the second neither,” said Gerrit. “I always sit in the first seat at church in our village, for I be churchwarden.”[[16]]
“First-class?” asked the clerk, in surprise, “but—do you know——”
“Never you mind; I want first-class, do you hear?” said Gerrit.
“Well, it’s all the same to me,” said the clerk, rising. He went to the place where he kept the tickets, stamped two, and received the rich Betuwers money.
“Gracious! there’s the train!” cried the clerk, whose calculation of fifteen minutes had been rather too liberal. “Will you come out, please?”
Gerrit and Gijs, the latter carrying the carpet-bag, rushed out on to the platform, followed by the clerk. The approaching train seemed to the travellers to grow longer the more they looked at it, and, when it stopped, both father and son involuntarily took a step backwards.
Neither Gerrit nor Gijs knew exactly what happened to them next; but when they got back all their senses,—for the wind was blowing freshly in their faces,—they saw themselves in a carriage containing, besides themselves, two other passengers, and which allowed free passage to the wind on all sides.
“Bad weather for the money,” grumbled Gerrit.
“Why! come and sit over here,” cried one of their fellow-travellers, apparently a Jew, who was sitting on the opposite side of the carriage, with his back to the engine. “Sit here, on the first seat; you will be frozen to death over there.”