"Ah," he said, "that makes a difference. If you wanted a bus now I might
help you; but I'm lame, you see--only got one real leg. Run over by a
van a matter of ten years ago, and I don't do much hard walking myself.
Still you can't go far wrong if you take the first on the left."
We tore ourselves away, took the first on the left and walked on, ever
on, through a wilderness of silent and unfamiliar houses. At last we
came upon a baker's cart. "Ask him," said my fellow-traveller, pointing
to the baker's man. I asked him.
"Are we right," I said, "for Paddington?"
"Oh yes," he said, "you're right enough. You'll get there in time, but
you'll have to walk round the world first. My advice is to go in the
opposite direction and take the second on the right, close to the dairy;
you can't miss it."
Again we fled into the blackness. Paddington had shrunk to the size of a
needle and we were in a huge bottle of hay, an oriental bottle full of
weird surprises in the shape of sultans, genie, princesses, mosques,
one-eyed porters, but never a hint of a railway station. How, indeed,
could there be a railway station in Bagdad five hundred years ago?
"Ask again," said the other one.
I addressed a gentleman who was hurrying over a bridge. "Can you," I
said, "direct me to Paddington station?"
He murmured something unintelligible and pointed to his ears.
I repeated my question loudly and again he murmured. At last I made out
his words: "Stone deaf, stone deaf."
"Great heavens," I said, "all the infirmities of the world are come out
against us. The man with one leg--the stone-deaf man. What next, what
next?"
The second wayfarer seized my arm. "Look," she said, pointing to the
sky. There, before our eyes, merging into the foggy infinity of the
heavens, was the glass roof of our dreams. We ran like hares. We
collided with everybody. Both of us had our feet trodden on by soldiers.
We shouted at porters and they shouted back at us, and at last we flung
ourselves into a train.
"You don't often come by this train," said a friendly fellow-passenger.
"No," I said, "I generally come by the 6.50."
"This _is_ the 6.50," he said.
* * * * *