"My husband is coming from London," she asserted, searching in her reticule for documentary evidence.
He looked out of the window, avoiding her eye. "In less than twenty minutes we have a nice fat competent train arriving partly from Birmingham, partly from Manchester, partly from Sheffield and partly from Birkenhead. There is even a dusty bit at the end which will have come all the way from Scotland, though why I cannot say. It will be simply full of husbands; you wouldn't care to try it, at any rate to let us show it you?"
"But my husband," she repeated.
"Is essentially a London man? Madam, we do not wish you to take any of these husbands we shall show you if they do not suit your requirements; but do let us show them you."
"I know that my husband is coming from London," she persisted.
"Believe me, Madam," he protested, "I should not accuse you of being mistaken, even if your husband should prove to be in this train I recommend. He might have deceived you."
She refused to budge. "My husband's postcard says he is coming in the 6.30 train from London. The train has come and he is not in it."
The station-master asked to be allowed to see the postcard, not, he explained, because he didn't believe her, but because he would like to have his worst suspicions of his Company's inefficiency confirmed.
She handed it to him. He read the announcement, made briefly and without enthusiasm, of the husband's proposed arrival "by the 6.30 train to-morrow." The woman smiled with triumph; the station-master referred to the postmark. He did not smile triumphantly. He was too old a hand for that.
"Will you allow me to intercede as a friend for all parties?" he asked. "Give him and us another chance; go away now and give us all twenty-four hours to think it over. Then call again, and, if your patience is rewarded, be generous and forgive us all."