“Well, never mind,” resumed the conductor (he was very cold, and wanted to get back to his warm corner in the closed compartment), “you can show me them presently.”
“Very good,” replied Gerrit, who began to think the man was not so bad after all.
The conductor disappeared again, in the same mysterious fashion, and Gerrit suddenly remembered that he had put away the tickets inside his watch-case.
At every station, when the whistle of the engine was heard, Gijs was seized with consternation, thinking that a child or some other living creature had been run over. Every time the train stopped, the sons of Batavia prepared to alight, and each time they were politely stopped by Nathan, who told them they might just make their minds easy, for they had not got there yet. Gijs thereupon came to the conclusion that the journey would not be over so soon as the schoolmaster had led them to suppose.
At length, after they had left the last of the intermediate stations behind, the mysterious conductor appeared once more, and asked for the tickets; and Gerrit, who had kept them carefully in his hand, under his woollen glove, produced them, and gave them up.
“First-class!” said the conductor. “Why, man, you’ve certainly had the best for your money!”
“Hi?” said Meeuwsen, who could not understand what the fellow meant.
“Stupid bumpkins!” muttered the conductor in an undertone, happily inaudible to the Meeuwsens, and left the carriage with a loud “Amsterdam, gentlemen!” The train now stopped for good. Every one got out, and there was such a row that Gerrit and his son could not understand what was going on, and stood staring about them quite dazed.
People, carriages, cabs, omnibuses, trunks, drivers with brandished whips, crying, “This way, sir!—Hotel this!—Hotel that!—just off!” There was such a swarming and confusion that our travellers only regained their full consciousness when they found themselves sitting in an omnibus, packed, knee to knee, like herrings in a barrel,—and, probably, dreaming—at least, so they thought.
“Where to, sir?” asked the conductor of the omnibus, in a green coat trimmed with silver lace, of the person sitting next the door.