I have read somewhere that when and/or if railway fares are increased it
will cost a man travelling with his wife and two children (the children
being half-fares) as much as twenty pounds to take third-class return
tickets to St. Ives.
Presumably this refers to the Cornish St. Ives, and to show how serious the
problem will be for quite large families I need only refer my readers to
the well-known poetical riddle which is generally supposed to refer to the
Cornish St. Ives too. It will be seen at once that in the case of a
septuagamist going to or returning from St. Ives with his family the cost
will be vastly greater, even if no special luggage rates are leviable for
the carriage of excess cats.
Fortunately there is a much nearer St. Ives in Huntingdonshire, and if I
was going to St. Ives at all, with or without encumbrances, I should
certainly choose that one. As a matter of fact the Huntingdonshire St. Ives
is a very pleasant place indeed, with a lot of red-and-yellow cattle
standing about, if one may take the authority of the County Card Game in
these matters. It is almost as pleasant as Luton, where there is a fellow
in a blue smock with side-whiskers and a reaping-hook, and Leicester, which
consists solely of a windmill and a house where RICHARD III. slept on the
night before the Battle of Bosworth Field. Not a word about RAMSAY
MACDONALD.
But we are not talking about RAMSAY MACDONALD and the County Card Game; we
are talking about Sir ERIC GEDDES and his railway fares, and talking pretty
sharply too. What is to be done about this monstrous imposition? And how
are we going to show the Government that you cannot play about with ozone
as you can with margarine and coal? If only all passengers were prepared to
act in concert it would be easy enough to bring Sir ERIC to his knees. The
best and simplest plan would be for everybody to ask at the booking-office
for a half-fare, stating boldly that his or her age was exactly eleven
years and eleven months. It might not sound very convincing, of course,
even if you had a red-and-black cricket-cap on the back of your head and
covered your beard or what not with one hand; but a constant succession of
people all demanding the same thing would most certainly cause the
booking-clerk to give way. It might occur to him besides that, since so
many people insisted on giving their wrong ages for the pleasure of
fighting in war-time, they had a perfect right to do the same for the
pleasure of travelling in peace-time; and in the case of the women his
reputation for gallantry would be imperilled if he had the impudence to
doubt their word.
But would everybody be prepared to take up this strong and reasonable line?
I doubt it, and we must turn to the consideration of other economical
devices.
One plan which I do not honestly recommend is travelling under the seats of
the railway compartment, like _Paul Bultitude_ in _Vice Versa_. I say this
partly because the accommodation under the seats is not all that it ought
to be, and even where there is no heating apparatus a tight fit for large
families, and partly because you have to face the possibility that your
tickets may be demanded on the platform at the other end. Nor do I favour
the method invariably adopted by people in cinema plays, which is to sit on
the buffers or the roofs, or conceal yourself among the brakes or whatever
they are underneath the carriages. Unless you drop off just before the
terminus, which hurts, the same objection arises as in the under-the-seat
method; and in any case you are practically certain to be spotted not only
by the officials of the railway company concerned but with axle-grease.
It is of course possible to travel without concealment and without a ticket
either, merely discovering with a start of surprise when you are asked for
it that you have lost the beastly thing. But this involves acting. It
involves hunting with a great appearance of energy and haste in all your
pockets, your reticule, your hatband, the turn-ups of your trousers, _The
Rescue_ (for you certainly used something as a book-marker) and finally
turning out in front of all the other passengers the whole of your
note-case, which proves that you cannot have been going to stay at the
"Magnificent" after all, and the envelopes of all the old letters which you
were taking down to the sea in the hopes of answering them there; and even
after that you have to give the name and address of somebody you don't like
(say Sir ERIC GEDDES) to satisfy the inspector.
On the whole I think the best way is the one which I mean to adopt myself
at the earliest opportunity. Let us suppose that you are going to Brighton.
At Victoria Station you will purchase (1) a return ticket to Streatham
Common, (2) a platform ticket. The platform ticket entitles you to walk on
to the platform from which the Brighton train starts, and, when it is just
moving out and all the tickets have been looked at, you will leap on board.
This brings you to Brighton, and all you have to do there is to accost the
man who takes the tickets in a voice hoarse with fury. "Look here," you
will say, "I had an important business engagement at Streatham Common,
worth thousands and thousands of pounds to me, and one of your fool porters
told me a wrong platform at Victoria. What are you going to do about it?"
Now you might think that the porter would reply, "Come off it, Mister; you
don't kid me like that," or make some other disappointing and impolite
remark; but not a bit of it. Bluster is the thing that pays. First of all
he will apologise, and then he will fetch the station-master, and he will
apologise too, and after a bit they will offer you a special train back to
Streatham Common, probably the one the KING uses when he goes to the
seaside. But you will of course refuse to be pacified and wave it away,
saying, "Useless, absolutely useless. Now that I am in this awful hole I
shall spend the night here. But I shall certainly sue your Company for the
amount of the business that I have lost."
That is what I mean to do, and with slight variations the ruse can be
applied to almost any non-stop run. Now that I have given the tip I shall
hope to find quite a little crowd of disappointed business men round the
station exits at holiday time when and/or if railway fares are increased.
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[Illustration: _Racing Tout (arrested the day before)._ "CAN YER TELL ME
WOT WON THE THREE-THIRTY?"
_Magistrate_. "SILENCE!" _Tout._ "W'Y, THERE WASN'T NO SUCH 'ORSE
RUNNING."]
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