“My dear old Ordeyne! who would have thought of meeting you here? What wind blows you to Paddington?”
“I expect Carlotta by the Plymouth Express.”
“The fair Carlotta? And how is she? And what is she doing at Plymouth?”
In the middle of my explanation he pulled out his watch.
“By Jove! I must get to the next platform and catch my train to Ealing. I was just killing time about the station. I like seeing a train come in—the gleam and smoke and rush and whirr of the evil-looking thing—and the sudden metamorphosis of its sleek sides into mouths belching forth humanity. I think of Hades. This, by the way, isn’t a bad representation of it—the up-to-date Hades. They’ve got a railway bridge now across the Styx, and Charon has a gold band around his cap, and this might be the arrival platform of the damned souls.”
“You forget,” said I, “that it is the arrival platform of Carlotta.”
He threw back his head and laughed boyishly.
“Well, consider it the Golden Gate terminus of the ‘Earth, Hades and Olympus Railway’ if you like. I’m off on a branch line to meet a beauteous duchessa at Ealing—oh, an authentic one, I assure you.”
“Why should I doubt it?” said I.
Stenson, whom I had brought to look after Carlotta’s luggage, came up and touched his hat.